


Parhelion

by Fianna_Ai



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Background Relationships, Background Seradaar, Cole to the rescue, Digital Art, Dorian and Dagna are geniuses, Established Relationship, Fade Rifts, French is Orlesian, Frottage, Grief/Mourning, HEA, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Latin is Tevene, Light BDSM, M/M, Multiverse, No Breakups, Oral Sex, Pining, Post-Corypheus, Pre-Exalted Council, Primarily Cullrian, Riding, Rimming, Secondary Adoribull, Smut, Spanish is Antivan, Time Magic, art in chapter 13, magical research, oh no someone caught a case of the feelings, science is magic, the desk has to make a cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:54:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 153,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27343087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fianna_Ai/pseuds/Fianna_Ai
Summary: The Breach is sealed, and the Inquisition is ready to explore the new chances their wins have earned them throughout Thedas, under the distant political rumblings of Ferelden and Orlais. An unusual rift appearing in Skyhold is the last thing they expect, and when Dorian suddenly disappears, it becomes clear that not all of the Inner Circle is ready to move on.The return of a Dorian Pavus utterly unlike the man they know brings them face to face with the results of a world shaped by different choices. For Cullen, it means facing the prospect of a future he thought he wouldn't survive to see, and needs he has pushed aside for so many years, it may be too late to begin. For The Iron Bull, it means coming to terms with an imminent loss, and deciding just how much he's willing to put on the line - for the first and last time.Will this new Dorian have answers for either of them, and can he be trusted to return their own Dorian to them?
Relationships: Dorian Pavus/Cullen Rutherford, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 251
Kudos: 111





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, just a few quick words. Effusive thanks to my lovely editor, [Calcitron,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calcitron/pseuds/Calcitron) (Thank you for helping me keep my head screwed on straight!) who helped me get my toes back into the water and listened to all of my, "BUT WHAT IF"s and "Latin conjugation sucks!" complaints at 2am.
> 
> Thanks also to a good group of spuds at the [Herald's Rest](https://discord.gg/Wesua75M7x) (Cullrian-centric) Discord for all of the prompts, inspiration, and putting up with my terrible jokes.
> 
> Cullrianites: Please be patient with chapter one. I promise I will make it worthwhile! :D

“ _Ohh_ , I don’t think I can…” a high-pitched whine eased its way out into the cold, quiet room, and Bull licked a path up his lover’s neck with great delicacy even as he eased his flesh in between damp, hot thighs one more time. The slick slide, ending in that tight clench - he would never tire of this man.

“Sure you can, _Kadan_ ,” he breathed softly, watching the long golden-brown throat work hard to swallow, even as it fell back limply between his raised biceps. He rode like he was made for it, muscles clenching in his abdomen. “I have faith in you,” he whispered, right into the underside of his chin, and breathed out a hot gust of air that chilled the path of his tongue and made Dorian shiver.

“Unreasonable brute,” he mouthed quietly, the words almost unheard as the push of the substantial cock into his body sent a great tremor through all his limbs, punching the air out of his gut. Knowing how he liked that breathlessness, the _Tal-Vashoth_ warrior fucked up into him firmly in that moment, watching his mouth fall open soundlessly, the obscene sounds of come squelching out of him filling the small space between them.

Tamping down on a smile, Bull surveyed his lover with a lidded gaze. Dorian was tied up all pretty in soft rope, wrists bound to one another behind his head; he was tethered in place on his knees with his thighs spread almost uncomfortably wide over Qunari-sized hips. The ropes tied around his well-toned torso were attached to knots Bull had set into the headboard of the secondhand bed they’d been wrecking regularly for months - since the last one broke - letting the mage lean his weight back even as he took the full force of another thrust up into his body.

As he finally started to gasp in air again, his head rolling forward on his neck as though dizzy, Bull set his blunted nails into the gaps in the ropes crossing his abdomen, leaving little white crescents to redden and tease warmly into his skin. Each grip made Dorian jump and flex every muscle from his collarbones to his cock, a few meagre drops falling onto the larger man’s stomach beneath him. “Fucking amazing, _Kadan_ ,” he muttered. Dorian liked to be flattered, sure - but when it was real, off-the-cuff praise, he truly bloomed. He never stifled the urge to pamper his mage verbally, and as a result, those simple compliments had him spreading his knees wider on the bed, begging with his body, hips canting rhythmically against his thrusts, elbows splaying widely as though to put his own flesh on display.

“Look at how you take me,” he grabbed the tight loops of rope around the widest part of the Tevinter man’s thighs, checking that it wasn’t too tight even as he used the grip to drag his ass down to the base of his cock, hearing another gasp push out of him. A pulse of heat throbbed up into his belly as Dorian made that helpless little motion with his lips.

“ _Mm_ … dedication, and…” he swallowed hard, shuddering and squeezing his inner muscles with a delicious groan as Bull ground up against his prostate. “Diligent…” he seemed to lose track of his words, shaking his head gently. Grinning, Bull followed a drip of fluid down his inner thigh with one fingertip, scooping it up and letting his nail score a line in the wake of skin sensitized by the drop. Dorian shivered and lapped at the fingertip when it was pressed to his lips, distractedly. “Bull,” he inquired with a shaky shadow of his usual haughtiness. “Are you planning on fucking me or leaving me to suffer?”

“Hmm, if you can string that many words together, I’d better quit playing around,” he decided, setting his heels into the bed and dragging Dorian off of his entire length, up to the crown. Carefully, he set his _Kadan_ to balancing on his knees instead of leaning into the ropes, and Dorian made a woozy sound of protest, a crescent of stormy gray flickering through his long eyelashes. “Comfy?” He waited for a tolerant nod, and then thrust up with the full force of his hips like he was taking down an enemy.

Keening that emerged from his gut and pushed out of his throat set Dorian jerking forward and then eagerly pushing down, the sound turning even _more_ needy as Bull reached around his hips. Digging his fingers into bruised flesh, he pulled the lovely globes of his rear wide, exposing what he knew was a flushed and dripping entrance, and he filled it up as full and thick as he could, once again, and again. Firm thighs trembled against his hips.

“ _Fuck_ ,” the mage pleaded through gritted teeth, curling his shaky knees to bring his full weight down on the length filling his ass, turning each thrust into more. Bull pushed at his chest with one hand, putting more of his weight back on the ropes, changing the angle, and Dorian seemed to writhe against the head of his cock, grinding it into that spot inside his body again and again, panting louder and harsher into the air.

Watching the sensations affect him - reach into him and grab him from the pit of his gut and turn him inside out - Bull licked his suddenly dry lips, thrusting a little unevenly to draw tiny little cries from him unexpectedly. Seeing him abandon all pretense to just chase and seize that pleasure inside his body - he groaned aloud as he savored the sight. Dorian wasn’t looking at him, and the warrior found he _wanted_ those eyes on him. But this was so good he couldn’t get greedy; no one else here in the south had really gone to the lengths, pun slightly intended, that Dorian had gone to in order for Bull to be able to fuck them this deeply.

“Oh, the shit I want to do to you, _Kadan_ ,” he growled, appreciating the flush in his face, in his neck, turning the head of his cock a deep red under all that leaking fluid, watching it bounce in the air, stiff and free with each thrust. “You look so good like this, but I want to do _everything_ with you,” he promised in a mumble. He let his hands slide up and pinched both hardened nipples, listening to his curse and letting him arch his flexible back to push his chest into his hands as he took him. “I want to do stuff with you I haven’t even dreamed up yet.”

Dorian’s breathless grin was truly captivating, even as it flickered over his face. Finally his eyes opened, a touch of smugness almost drowning in molten pleasure in his silver-gray eyes. “I’m very…” his voice was wrecked, and cracked wildly for a moment. Bull bottomed out into him, staying for one torturously long moment, breaking their rhythm enough to re-focus them both. “ _Inspiring_ ,” he managed through a dry mouth.

His lover was riding that edge, but it was so hard to come the third time in a night. He was almost a little worried that he’d pushed too far; ridden him too raw and missed some warning. “Shit yeah you are,” he agreed easily. “Think next time I tie you up I’m gonna have your hands down, tied to your ankles,” he reached over and trickled a little more oil in between them where their motion would force it into his lover’s body with successive thrusts. The mage swallowed hard, eyes on his lips like his ears were starting to ring. “Gonna hang your head over the side of the bed and fuck down your throat ‘til you can’t breathe.”

Thrilling silently, Dorian watched him take a palmful of the oil and wrap it loosely around his erect flesh, stilling its bobbing motion. “No,” he whispered, in answer to that fantasy, even as his hips rolled eagerly, pushing firmly into Bull’s sword-callused hand. It took him a moment to readjust, and a bead of sweat slipped down his temple as the _Tal-Vashoth_ man edged the smoothest corner of his thumbnail gently into the slit at his tip, making him keen softly, putting a sharp edge on his pleasure. “Need to… pull my hair,” he gasped, his eyes dropping closed, his hips thrusting with abandon as he whined deep in his chest.

“I love… pulling your hair,” he forced himself to finish that sentence in the way that wouldn’t scare Dorian away, flicking his free hand over one nipple. “Fuck yourself on me, beautiful,” he rumbled, as low in his chest as he could and more than a touch breathless, and Dorian’s lips closed up so tight he couldn’t make a sound, only nod with wide eyes.

Dropping hands to his hips, he just lightly guided Dorian into the best angle. He felt his own orgasm tingling up from the base of his balls, but it felt like it was coming all the way up from his toes, from the boiling forge in the pit of his stomach. “Come on,” he whispered urgently, watching the mage fall apart as Bull thrust up into him. “Let’s make a mess so I can lick it out from inside you,” he promised wickedly, waiting for those signs of imminent release, he added, “Come for me.”

Already almost unbearably tight, even after being fucked off and on for half the night, Dorian’s body clenched hard and sweet around him, sending sharp waves of throbbing fire into him. His balls tightened further as Dorian’s back arched again with a desperate little mewl, his ass so hot and wet that Bull found himself helpless to resist being dragged over the edge right along with him. Heat flushed his skin as his muscles locked up, shooting up into him again as Dorian’s orgasm rocked the whole bed frame, and Bull’s own peak added to the quake. The wood groaned in protest.

Panting almost in staccato counterpoint to one another, the two let the liquid waves of pleasure finish washing through them with a last few fumbling thrusts. Even before he knew what he was doing, Bull leaned his head back against the wall, weight of his head resting on his horns, his temporarily clumsy fingers reaching for the ropes. First the wrists; he eased Dorian’s arms down, soothing the aching shoulders with a groan. The mage looked far gone still, and the faint redness where the rope had rubbed was tender and warm. Would be all day tomorrow, if the ‘Vint’s own testimonial was to be believed.

As he released the ropes, his lover swayed in place, still impaled upon his softening cock, his hands reaching clumsily to brace on Bull’s stomach and chest. He was the perfect size, Bull thought again; big enough to be a little forceful with, slender enough to have a truly aesthetic proportion, and as a human, he was never too much to handle, carry, or hold.

Separating them by expedient of lifting the younger man, he encouraged Dorian to laze forward against his torso, sticky wet flesh and all. Breathing out a long exhale against his skin, the mage licked his lips and let his arms hang limp around the larger man’s ribs. Only occasionally did he have to move the darker-skinned man to remove a coil of rope.

“I must acquaint you with the definition of the phrase ‘ _crimes against humanity_ ,’” Dorian quipped at last, his voice gravelly. Bull smiled as he finished coiling the rope, draping it over one of the posts of the headboard. “You could go to the stockade, at least,” he griped with a secretive smile beneath his closed eyes.

“Oh, I thought last time you said the phrase you wanted was ‘ _cruel and inhumane,’_ wasn’t it?” He took the opportunity to reach both hands up, running all of his fingers up into Dorian’s hair, usually so well-coiffed. It was thick, healthy hair, like anyone who’d spent his formative years in the best of health, and such a pleasure to touch, or grab. Just now it sent a light rash of gooseflesh down his neck.

“Sounds like something the magistrate would read from your list of charges, yes,” the mage murmured sleepily. Bull enjoyed the look of the smile, and then the feel of it under his thumb. _I want to keep you_ , something in him told him to say, and it made his heart beat hard. But Dorian felt so relaxed and pleasured right now. He didn’t want to fuck it up - to make it hard and brittle between them. This room was supposed to be a sanctuary from everything that made him afraid. “You should really consider mending your ways,” he muttered around that errant thumb.

“Oh, hmm,” Bull made little agreeable noises. “And which part of tonight’s festivities did you object to?”

“The part that my body isn’t physically able to keep up with,” he groused, turning his head to bury his nose into the _Tal-Vashoth_ ’s gray sternum.

“That reminds me,” he said, sliding his hands from Dorian’s hair all the way down his bare back, with slow suggestiveness. When his fingers slipped between his cheeks, he felt almost every muscle in the man’s body shiver and flinch. “I made you a promise,” he lowered his head to whisper against his ear, flicking his tongue demonstratively into the ridges as he did.

“Insatiable,” Dorian remarked, with a tone between faux-disapproval and titillation, “...but I don’t think I’m up to that challenge currently. Too sensitive,” he frowned. Then he eased away his own discomfort by sucking a mark into Bull’s skin, though it was a light one that would probably fade within the hour.

Making an approving noise, Bull squeezed his shoulders gently to alleviate the developing ache. He wanted to praise some more, but Dorian would get uncomfortable. Instead, he simply dropped small kisses into his hair, as well as he could with the awkward angle. “Can you let me clean us up before you pass out?” Smirking at his lapful of boneless ‘Vint, making boneless _so long as I don’t have to move_ sounds, he eased his arms down, curling them around his torso gently.

From his deepening breath, he could tell the mage was already slipping into the lighter top layers of sleep - not quite here, not quite in the Fade yet. Taking the opportunity to hold him, he simply wrapped his arms tighter around his body, mouth resting in a not-quite-kiss against the crown of his head. Instinctively, he closed his eye and rocked his shoulders gently, just wanting to feel Dorian moving with his arms still. Just a little longer. Long fingers twitched against his ribs on one side, like maybe he was aware but too tired to react, or perhaps he was starting to dream.

He eased the mage over and onto his back on the bed, rose with a crack and pop of his joints to get some water, and wiped them both off. As gingerly as he could, he cleaned out the tender, stretched flesh between his lover’s legs, and then poured some of the clean water from the pitcher into a cup. Lifting Dorian’s head in one arm, he put the cup to his lips, calling his name until he woke enough to drink a little. His eyes didn’t really open and he slipped away again immediately. Fondly, Bull tucked him in and curled into the bed beside him.

About five hours later, chaos broke loose in Skyhold, and Bull jerked himself up and out of slumber rapidly as he heard trampling boots on the ramparts, voices rising in panic. Something told him this wasn’t just a drill, and he was up and shaking Dorian’s shoulder gently even as he grabbed for his own clothing. Dorian was still blinking sleep out of his pretty gray eyes, looking around blankly as he rested up on his elbows, while Bull notched his belt into place. He threw Dorian’s clothes at the bed next to him.

“Something’s going on out there,” he snapped, and Dorian blinked two or three quick times, awareness seeping into him much more suddenly than normal. “Come on, _Kadan_.” As Dorian started up the process of garbing himself with sleep-clumsy fingers, Bull opened his trunk and went digging in for a box at the bottom. He found a spare set of potions he kept on hand for emergencies, and fished out a rejuvenation potion. He had a single lyrium potion as well - not something he normally kept a lot of, for obvious reasons - and took them both.

Popping the cork of the rejuvenation potion, Bull sniffed it. It had been sitting in the box a while, and he chided himself for getting so safe in Skyhold he hadn’t really bothered to check the expiration on his stash. He took the smallest sip, and it tasted fine, so he handed the rest off to his mage. “Drink this; your body’s exhausted.” Jerking only the most perfunctory smile and nod, Dorian complied, and paused, still shirtless, when Bull shoved a glass of water in his hand. He downed it hard - apparently even he could hear the panic outside now - and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. Bull buckled his harness onto his shoulder as Dorian finished dressing.

Snapping the latches of his jacket, he paused when Bull came over and hooked fingers into his belt. Looking up in surprise, he didn’t try to dodge the small kiss. Clumsily, he pressed one of his own along the stubble on the taller man’s jaw, earning a moment of softened smile. “Don’t worry, you big thing; I’ll look after you,” he teased when the moment became just a little unbalanced, one hand unconsciously rising to touch the base of his throat where his pulse beat.

“That’s why I keep you around,” he said, then did his silly one-eyed wink, making Dorian roll his eyes as he bit back a smile he didn’t want to admit to, and swipe a hand over his moustache to straighten it. Bull raised the lyrium potion between his forefinger and thumb until Dorian caught sight of it, and then he pushed it into his belt pouch. Dorian patted it closed again even as they turned toward the door. “Let’s go see if Cullen is in his office. He’ll surely know what’s going on,” Bull suggested.

When they exited the room, there was relatively little organization in sight; troops ran and crowded in every direction, back and forth along the battlements, down in the upper and lower courtyards, and up and down the stairs to the Great Hall. It was barely-controlled chaos, and the instincts he’d spent a decade in Seheron honing protested mightily at the sight.

Vivienne was on the way across the courtyard in her impossibly Orlesian shoes when the two emerged from Bull’s dilapidated room on the battlements, but they didn’t notice her until they had crossed the barbican. Seeing them pause and notice her, the dark-skinned woman looked up and raised her hand, as gently as Empress Celene at an Orlais Day Parade. Dorian snorted, even as Bull noted the woman was carrying two staves in the crook of her other arm. They descended to the lower courtyard to meet her, and she handed one staff to Dorian.

“Impeccable timing, darlings, though you did take the long way around,” she remarked, her voice thoughtfully tense. Behind her shoulder, Bull watched a rush of recruits on duty hurrying double-time up the stairs to the upper courtyard. Dorian rubbed his hands along the staff in hurried appraisal and strapped it to his back. “And completely dressed, as well,” she noted with a sniff of amusement.

“Well, it ain’t No-Pants Friday yet,” Bull remarked cheerfully, then remembered who he was talking to. “ _Ma’am_ ,” he added respectfully.

“Quite,” she managed, with an admirable sniff that combined affection and disdain at once. “Please, accompany me,” she swept out a hand, and the three made their way toward the main stairs where the soldiers had gone. As they moved in that direction, they were passed by scouts and runners heading in both directions, and a trio of infantry escorting frightened-looking non-combatants down the stairs and out of the area - including Cabot and the girls who had been cleaning and opening the Tavern. Skin prickling, Bull couldn’t shake the feeling that Skyhold had suddenly become a war zone.

“ _Venhedis_ ,” Dorian was nearly run down by an apologetic-looking runner, who grabbed his arm to steady him and then continued running right past. “What in the world - ?”

“I’d prefer your unbiased take on it, Lord Pavus,” Vivienne replied neutrally. Nodding jerkily, he settled his gauntlets and bounced up the stairs behind her like he hadn’t spent half the night tied to Bull’s headboard. Shaking his head and lumbering his bad knee up the stairs behind them, he followed the mages into the upper courtyard, where they passed through a cordon of soldiers at the head of the stairs, and again straight through a second perimeter a few meters closer to the northern wall.

Looking around, Bull found a knot of people further in, toward the little grassy area in the back where Cassandra ordinarily spent her time bashing training dummies during the daylight hours. Stability had now finally come to the upper courtyard at least; perhaps mostly due to the fact that Commander Cullen himself stood within the second perimeter, directing deployment. Around the upper courtyard, soldiers manned the battlements, the battlement stairs, the entrance to the Herald’s Rest, and the entrance to the dungeons. An enterprising group was wheeling barrels of ale out of the tavern, doubtless to set up a drink station for parched, panicked soldiers. Priorities had indeed been determined.

Coming up toward Cullen, Bull nodded his horns cordially at the Inquisition’s Commander, receiving a succinct nonverbal greeting in return. Dorian greeted Cullen absently, but his attention, as well as Vivienne’s, was focused past the man. They continued on as The Iron Bull drew even with the Fereldan ex-Templar.

“Cullen, what in the Void is going on at… six bells in the morning?” Bull squinted at the pale morning sky and the sleepy white tops of the Frostback peaks. The sun tried to tickle a sneeze out of him through his own eye, and he blinked furiously against it. He hadn’t realized that Skyhold was so bright this early in the morning.

“The mages are in a frenzy, like chickens with a fox in the henhouse,” Cullen muttered, and the _Tal-Vashoth_ barked a laugh at the quaint imagery. “We mostly can’t see it,” the man went on, and turned to point, one eye squeezing shut as he sighted down one arm toward the direction Dorian and Vivienne had gone. “...but if you look carefully, you can sort of see that the corner at the north wall there is very bright?”

Contemplating the observation phrased with the intonation of a question, Bull turned and looked back at the space there. What he’d taken to be a reflection of the sun there did seem to be a little unusual, now that the blonde-haired man had brought his attention to it. He’d assumed that the sunrise light had been reflecting from the light-colored stones of the wall, but in truth, with the sun rising in the east, the armory and quartermaster’s storage, along with the high wall of the garden courtyard, should have been casting that corner of Skyhold into shadow.

“I think I kinda see it,” he replied at last, somewhat mystified. “It’s… a pretty light?”

“A pretty light that just spat out demons half a candlemark ago,” Cullen replied grimly. “Two rage demons, a terror demon, and a Maker-damn despair demon.” Bull growled deeply, and Cullen jerked a nod, hands resting on his hips as they both stared in that direction. “Inquisitor Adaar’s - _Brielle!_ Get those civilians out of here!” Cullen put up a hand to Bull in apology and excused himself, to the taller man’s nod. He stalked away to back up his lieutenant against the wayward curiosity of Orlesian nobles on the stairs.

Four mages stood a couple of meters back from the ominously pretty glowing light, all armed with staves, but looking remarkably like puppies surveying a shark at the edge of the ocean. Along with Vivienne and Dorian, former Grand Enchanter Fiona was tipping her head upward to speak to Inquisitor Junou Adaar. The horned woman stood stiffly, but inclined her head downward to better hear the words of her Inner Circle’s arcane experts. As a _Vashoth_ apostate, she was no slouch in terms of magical capability, but much of it was self-taught, or the weak theories passed down from former _Saarebas_ , what few of them ever made it out of the Qun, anyway. She freely acknowledged that her Inner Circle mages and other magical advisors were of superior academic leanings in their respective schools, and treated them as such.

As Bull watched from afar, the Inquisitor raised her head again, the glow of the light chasing silver trails over her textured horn caps. He approached the group, seeing that they were joined by Cassandra and Rainier even as he did. Up on the north wall, he saw several familiar shapes, who appeared to be Leliana, with her violet cowl and ramrod-straight poise, as well as Sera surveying her Tadwinks, and Cole. The former two, and Lace Harding beside them, were carrying their bows.

“Hey Boss,” Bull called as the group of warriors joined the mages, causing her to turn his way. Bright blue eyeliner already stroked the edges of her blue eyes, stark against the dark purple-black skin and hair, put together with all the preparedness of a former mercenary even though it was so early in the day. Slightly nodding, she glanced over Cassandra and Blackwall, who were eyeing the golden light a little squintily. “I hear this thing started spitting out demons. Is it a good idea to let Cole so close?” he gestured upward.

Adaar glanced upward, considered, and then dismissed it. “He’s not alone, and I have to trust he’ll move out if he has to,” she replied. As Bull eyed him, the ghostly-looking spirit boy’s large hat turned to survey the two _Vashoth_ and then back toward the phenomenon. “I’m more worried about whatever the hell _this_ is,” she remarked, in her dry but deep voice. Behind her back, one fist curled inside the palm of the other hand.

“It’s radiant,” Dorian remarked, his voice a little hushed for once. “The range of colors and textures is truly startling,” he mused. The rest of the group looked at him.

“I only see a little hazy yellow glow. I’d miss it if I didn’t know where to look,” Bull remarked neutrally. Dorian glanced back at him, astonished at the difference between mage and non-magical senses. “That’s what the non-mages all apparently see, according to Cullen.”

“I do see some of the… _textures_ ,” Vivienne remarked stiffly, as though she were admitting a fault she didn’t care to acknowledge if it weren’t for necessity. “But it’s more like threads in a tapestry to me. It’s the same texture, repeated in variations, all in the same shades of gold.

“It’s green to me,” Junou mused, “and a little… pink, at the edges, I think.”

Vivienne raised her eyebrows. “Yours has edges, Inquisitor?”

“The point being,” Fiona interrupted smoothly, if a touch indifferently, “...that either this phenomenon is interpreted differently by every mage, or that it is responding to different levels or specialties of skill.” No one had been more surprised than The Iron Bull to hear Fiona offer to step into the gap that Solas had left in his disappearance, should the Inquisition require another talented mage. He’d honestly thought she’d given up any ambition she’d once had, and she wasn’t the youngest woman, by any means. Though a polarizing presence, she certainly had a way with their Gray Warden allies, and worked well with the Circle mages too, drafting proposals regarding the incipient College of Enchanters in her spare time in the library.

“What does it look like to you?” Junou asked curiously.

“It is more audible than visual,” she admitted after a moment. Troubled, she turned her head toward it again. “I will admit to having encountered strange magic in my younger days,” Fiona admitted, “... as have each of you. I propose that we combine our resources and attempt to map the nature of this phenomenon. Particularly,” she glanced at all three of her companion thaumaturgists, intoning in her Orlesian-accented Trade, “as it may be of a mind to expand.”

“Agreed,” Dorian hastened to reply, looking up at the light hungrily. Bull felt a stab of anxiety at his cavalier tone, insatiable for knowledge. “I have never beheld such a phenomenon - we should certainly attempt to understand it, especially if it intends to connect Skyhold with the Fade,” he pointed out. He glanced at them all, including the warriors as well, half-turning to do so, eyes lingering on Bull’s face a moment. “If this is some unusual manifestation of a Fade Rift, we cannot lose the opportunity to become acquainted with it.”

“If it’s some new kinda rift,” Junou began doubtfully, exchanging a glance with Rainier, then glancing up at Leliana, “... then isn’t it pretty damn convenient for it to spawn in our literal backyard?” Snorting, Bull tipped his own horns in acknowledgement of her point. “According to Solas, the Veil at Skyhold is unusually strong. I find it hard to believe that such a thing could just _accidentally_ occur here.”

If anyone could be counted upon to disagree with Fiona, it would be Vivienne. However, after a long moment in which she worked her long, tapered fingertips as though inspecting their edges, her brows knitting in slow concentration, full lips pursed, she at last took a small breath, a sigh barely stirring her shoulders. “I endorse no further action at this time, but we _must_ seek to understand it. At the very least, it is a threat.”

“Just the four of us, then?” Adaar grunted, and the other three bobbed uneven nods. Bull found himself backing away, looking at Cassandra and Rainier. Cullen rejoined them about then, glancing around at the group. He’d spent enough time in Circles to recognize four mages deploying around the phenomenon. Cassandra and Rainier spread out, and Bull raised a hand to Leliana on the wall, making an exaggerated gesture as though to keep two eyes peeled on the phenomenon.

Taking a spot in the configuration, Cullen eased in between the _Tal-Vashoth_ and the Seeker, drawing his sword with a slow rasp of metal. Following his lead, the others did as well. On the wall, Leliana’s hand stretched out, gesturing to Sera, Lace, and a handful of scouts to knock arrows to bows and prepare to draw at the first sign of trouble. She held her own lightly, surveying the deployment of mages surrounding the glowing thing.

It was sort of like an orb, Bull decided, rolling his shoulders uneasily, with ill-defined haze in the atmosphere around it. As he took his position facing east, he realized that the sunlight didn’t pass straight through it, creating an illusion of rings in its aura, with little glints of light like tiny suns circling it, as they did during sunrise at times in the cold winter air, and it was brighter in proximity - he could barely see the dark-skinned First Enchanter across it. Glancing to his left where the Inquisitor stood facing the rift, then to his right where Dorian licked his lips and hefted his staff in a curled hand at his left side, Bull focused over Fiona’s head, and then met Cullen’s gaze.

The warriors ringed the mages, ready to step in to the defense if needed, and once the Commander was satisfied with that, he took a deep breath, he called out to Junou, “Inquisitor, we stand ready!”

Taking a breath, Adaar palmed her staff with two spread hands, the other two mages in Bull’s view mirroring her, doubtless Vivienne as well on the other side. “Mages ready!” she called, taking a deep breath. “You know what to do. Begin!”

Slight movement at the edges of the perimeter; ex-Templars, and anxious Circle mages clutching their staves bravely. They stayed back for now, doubtless summoned by Cullen or Leliana, two masters of strategy in their various ways. In the meantime, the Inner Circle mages began to invoke a spell in approximate tandem, the four of them walling in the glowing spot in the sky with their staves, eyes going distant and lips moving quietly, and in multiple languages.

Whatever the spell, Bull wasn’t accustomed to watching them at it for so long, still as statues beyond the need for breath. Between them, around them, linking them one to another, a faint silvery-blue glow, not unlike a barrier spell, swelled up from the ground, a hollow column of light growing thinly around them like a low fog.

Leaning toward Cullen’s direction, he muttered loudly as he dared, “What spell is this?”

“Think of it as a discovery spell,” Cullen turned his head to reply, shifting his weight on the balls of his feet. “It’s intended to analyze and map the source and intent of the…” he gestured at it vaguely. “It’s typically used on a persistent area-of-effect magic incantation.” Even as he spoke, his golden-hazel eyes weighed the progress of the spell sharply, resting on the Inquisitor, who had the least experience with joint ritual casting, most heavily.

Bull looked the man over with an appraising eye, smiling faintly. As difficult as his past as a Templar had been, he clearly hadn’t wasted his intellect during those years. He was probably more knowledgeable about the arcane than almost any of what Dorian would refer to as the _soporati_ class. He turned his attention back to the happenings before them.

It felt like an hour before anything changed, though it couldn’t even have been fifteen minutes. Whether it was a reaction to the probing of the mages, or a natural evolution of its own cycle, the light contracted and then shone more brightly. “ _It’s opening_ ,” Dorian snapped sharply.

All weapons rose again, though none of the mages moved. On the wall, Leliana gave the signal for the bows to draw. Then a long, tense silence happened, and a few began to doubt anything was indeed even occurring. At last, the Inquisitor drew in a thick breath. “I feel it!”

Vivienne and Fiona echoed her shortly, though he wondered at the delay of the three women’s reaction. At last, a series of green splotches began to bubble up from the ground.

“Inquisitor, we can Dispel,” Cullen began to raise a hand to gesture a Circle mage close.

“ _No!_ ” she shouted. “No spells!”

Baffled but obedient, her Commander waved the mage back and gestured his Lieutenant to bring forward a few more backup soldiers. Even as the demons sprang forth, however - two terror demons, three wraiths, and two rage demons - the hail of arrows from above fell, carefully targeted to avoid Adaar’s vulnerable back. Fiona flinched just slightly before Bull, but he reached out his double-headed axe to block her body from any stray arrows.

The ground beneath her feet began to glow with the tell-tale green light welling up, and he grabbed her by the back of her robes, yanking her out of the circle of light with his free hand, just as a terror demon popped up out of the ground. Tossing Fiona around back behind him, Bull darted in and swung his weapon at the thing, cutting it deeply as it gave an unearthly squeal, knocking it to the ground. As it fell out of his range, he watched the thing suddenly seem to sprout a multitude of arrows, disintegrating into ichor as he watched. He looked up to the archers and pumped a fist at them.

The archers took out the wraiths in what felt like literal seconds, and Cullen and Cassandra came at the other terror demon from two angles, running it through almost simultaneously, shifting aside at the last minute to avoid running through one another while they were at it. It was inspiring, really. Rainier and Cullen’s troops took the two rage demons.

In the meantime, Fiona tried to get back to the disrupted ritual, but it was collapsing as they watched. In the air floating above the ground, however, almost even with the crenellations of the battlements, the golden orb had begun to mutate, the glow hardening and thickening in the air. It still floated, and still glowed like an additional sun, with the illusion of rings and bright spots flickering around it at a glance, but now it seemed to crystallize, like a true Fade rift. Along with it, however, came a fierce, warm wind, limited to the first four or six meters surrounding the rift.

Disengaging from the discovery spell with a sharp flourish of her staff, Adaar glanced over at Vivienne, and Bull guessed from her face that the dark-skinned mage had ceased her incantation as well. That left Dorian alone, on the far side, staring unflinchingly into the light, jaw sharp and hard, eyes narrowed and flickering with golden-green light.

“ _Kadan_ ,” Bull called, concerned at the faraway look in his eyes. Fiona glanced at the Inquisitor, who nodded her toward Dorian with a jerk of her chin. The Elven Circle mage approached him with delicacy in her movements, stowing her own staff on her back. It said something to Bull that the Commander merely sheathed his sword and stood aside, watching the former Grand Enchanter approach the _altus_. Apparently there was a wrong way to do this.

“Dorian,” she called as she came into arms’ length. The _Tal-Vashoth_ didn’t fail to notice the fact that the effects of the discovery spell were still completely in effect, even with just one Tevinter mage to support them. Pride warred with growing concern in his chest. Of course his _Kadan_ could outshine anyone, but something about his reaction was _wrong_ , somehow.

Fiona touched Dorian’s arm, calling his name again loudly, and then full-on shaking him, and the man didn’t respond except to continue respirating, and shift his balance unconsciously against her assault. At last, impatiently, Fiona reached up and pulled his staff out of his unresisting hands - both palms faced forward toward the rift, only his thumbs had secured it in place to begin with. He blinked slightly against the stinging warm wind, but made no other reaction.

Utterly baffled, Fiona looked down at the staff in her hands, and then up to Dorian, as though she were at a complete loss. Turning her face upward again, she looked at Cullen as she might have looked toward the Templar guards in her previous Circle at the White Spire. At this point, Adaar had circled around the rift, and stood at Bull’s side as though waiting to hear his insights on Dorian’s actions.

“What the hell,” was all he had muttered.

Cullen was frowning at the staff in Fiona’s hands as well, and he took three great strides to come up to the _altus’_ side. “Dorian, _stop_ casting,” he barked in his best drill instructor voice, but there was no reaction. After a moment, he got a puzzled expression, and brought his hands up to his own chest, stripping one glove off with the other hand. Reaching out, he put his fingertips to the mage’s throat, drawing his hand away almost immediately.

“What’s going on?” Bull came closer, seeing the scowl on Cullen’s face, and the Inquisitor followed in his wake, blinking quizzically.

“His pulse is racing,” Cullen pointed out, “and his mana is dropping rapidly. I think he might be - _trapped_ or something. If we can’t snap him out of it,” he heaved a sigh, “...I’ll need to order him Dispelled - Smited, more likely - before he comes to harm.”

“It is true, Inquisitor,” Fiona drifted to Cullen’s side, uneasily. “I have touched him, and I cannot tell where he and the phenomenon begin and end. Ordinarily, we only see this kind of effect if we are referring to separating a mage and their _own spell_.” She glanced her eyes at all of them, then across at Dorian, upon whom her opinion was guardedly neutral, if her face were to be judged.

“Some of the non-responsiveness could be that he’s going into shock more quickly than we realize,” Cullen pointed out with some urgency. “If that thing is feeding on him -”

“There’s a lyrium potion in his belt pouch,” Bull pointed out, silently blessing his own paranoia. “What if we try to get him to take it? Then we can reassess.”

The group glanced at one another, seeming mostly in consensus by facial expression. By this point, Vivienne had come around the edge and caught up to speed.

“Alright,” Junou sighed sharply. “Get the potion, try to get it in him. If he can’t drink it, try a Dispel. If that won’t work, let’s try to physically separate him from the spell.”

“That could end badly, Inquisitor,” Fiona pointed out, glancing at the Loyalist mage with the same neutrality she had shown toward Dorian earlier. “He, or the spell, may act to defend himself. Better to force the potion into him if he cannot sip, by hand or by mouth, and rely on his reflex to swallow.”

Making an unpleasant grimace, Adaar nodded. “Fine. We’ll do that if we have to. But…” she paused, glancing at Bull. “It can’t be a non-magical person, or a Templar. For obvious reasons we should not expose them to injury or danger. It should be a mage. Guess I’ll do it,” she sighed. He was sure she wasn’t looking forward to anything getting weird between them.

“Only if it looks like you won’t be endangered by it,” Cullen objected. His eyebrows knit together, and he sighed deeply as he closed his eyes. “Unfortunately, it looks like I’ll have to be your stand-in if it gets dicey. We can’t ask our Templars and Mages to do it.” Knowing how the Commander had struggled with the lyrium, Bull knew the level of sacrifice that even the suggestion required.

“Do not be ridiculous,” Vivienne replied, doing her best to seem unruffled. “If it looks too dangerous for the Inquisitor, then _I_ shall do it, of course,” she settled the fabric of her high neckline and keyhole bodice with one smooth motion of her finger. It looked practiced to outsiders, but to Bull it screamed _insecure_. At least it wouldn’t bother her in the least to earn Dorian’s ire should she have to kiss it into him. “Now, we’ve little time. Let us move.”

Cullen eyed the older woman with barely-disguised gratitude. She tipped her head faintly at him, but did not smile in this instance. Fiona returned to Dorian’s side without delay, and Bull called to her the location of the correct pouch, staying out of their way as requested. Finding the lyrium potion, she shook the sediment in it - yeah, it worked, but it was getting old.

“When all this is done, can you close this rift, Junou?” Cullen called.

“Gonna try,” she tipped her long, curvy horns as she said it.

Fiona pulled Dorian’s jaw open ungently, and tried to press the vial to his mouth. He didn’t seem to be able to register in order to swallow. Proactively, the dark-skinned woman approached, and the two of them tilted his head back, prying his jaw open with their collective fingers. Once they had his mouth open like something indecent was about to happen, they tried again. Judging from Vivienne’s frustrated expression, it wasn’t working.

“Press his tongue down at the back!” Bull called from outside their range, one hand cupped around his mouth. “Like you would if someone had an airway obstruction!”

“Says the expert,” Adaar muttered spontaneously into the tension.

“Yeah, later I’ll laugh, Boss,” he growled.

For now, Vivienne merely let out a ladylike grimace and shoved her fingers down the back of his throat as she would a dog choking on a half-chewed slipper. His throat convulsed at last and he took great, greedy swallows to choke down the lyrium. Rearranging her face to mask-like indifference while Dorian swallowed around her fingers, Vivienne withdrew her hand and grabbed his upper arm as he staggered. She pushed him into Fiona on the other side, and Cassandra stepped up to try to help keep him on his feet.

Bull let out a sharp breath he hadn’t realized he’d held. “ _Kadan,”_ he called firmly, watching Dorian cough and attempt to stagger backward, away from the nascent rift. The Seeker kept him from landing on his ass, but it was a near thing as she hauled an arm up under his. “Are you alright?” he pressed.

“Other than the fact that Madame Vivienne’s perfume tastes approximately as good as it smells, I’m tolerable,” Dorian rasped roughly, grabbing his throat, and eyeing the rift warily. The short-haired woman snorted delicately in some dry sort of humor, but declined to exchange further barbs. “That thing -” Dorian jerked a wrist to flick his fingers at the rift.

“It felt familiar, somehow,” Adaar said, her eyes on Dorian.

“Yes,” he drawled after a few more struggling breaths, reclaiming his staff from Fiona’s grasp. “It felt like Time Magic.”

They retreated to the stairs in the confusion, and the archers above stood down uneasily as they seated Dorian on the pale stone steps up toward the Great Hall. Shaking, he reached up to smooth first his hair and then his moustache, breathing labored slightly.

“So, who knows Time Magic around here?” Adaar tilted her head at Dorian as he caught his breath.

“The same who know it anywhere at all. Alexius, and myself.”

Cullen beckoned his lieutenant. “Brielle, Alexius should still be supervised,” he said. “Send me his daytime guards, and we should have some mages assist us in searching his quarters.” The woman nodded. Turning back to them, the ex-Templar met the Inquisitor’s gaze. “He hasn’t been giving us any trouble, or doing anything that seemed particularly suspicious.”

“Honestly,” Dorian swallowed, and Bull drifted closer. The _altus_ gazed up at him momentarily as though bolstering himself from his lover’s presence, though he’d never make such a scene as to reach out. “I don’t think Alexius _could_ do this - not without giving some sign. We recovered notebooks, calculations, all manner of projections from his retinue in Redcliffe.” He paused. “Get one of the Tranquil in here, Inquisitor.”

“A Tranquil?” She asked, eyes widening as she shifted her weight onto one leg and gazed down at him. “Why?”

“Well, since the only other person here who is conversant with Time Magic - yours truly - did emphatically _not_ cast this spell,” he pointed out, his voice stronger but still thready, “... you need someone with thaumaturgical comprehension and complex mathematics skills who can help track the life cycle of the rift. I can help.”

“It’s a _rift_ ,” Rainier spoke up at last from the rear of the group. “Why can we not simply _close_ it as we do all others?” his voice was baffled and skeptical.

“I truly regret falling in with such unstudious barbarians,” Dorian sniffed, though without any real power. “Destroy it, then, if you can.” He frowned at it, his eyes hazy and distant again. “But there is something about it that is… unique, and symmetrical. You may not be _able_ to destroy it so simply.”

“Well, so long as it spits out demons, we’ve got no choice,” Bull reminded him gently, earning only a thoughtful hum of agreement. As the others moved back toward the rift, he reached down and squeezed Dorian’s shoulder gently. “You okay, _Kadan_?”

The Tevinter mage’s smile was faint but unmistakable. “I shall be,” he assured the horned man with some modicum of effort in gathering himself. “Your lyrium potion was quite handy,” he remarked. He seemed like he was about to tease, but his smile dropped into a frown when the Inquisitor lined up at the bottom of the rift.

Pushing himself up to his feet, his elbows and fists were shaky against the stone steps. Bull caught him under the elbow to help him the rest of the way up. They approached the rift, a few meters behind the rest of the Inner Circle. Knowing he wanted to be closer, Bull helped him get a head start on heading that way. Knowing how Dorian preferred his dignity, he curtailed his urge to hold, to support, and let him fly free on his own toward the rift.

The Anchor glowed green upon the air, and Junou Adaar raised her hand. The scouts on the wall took notice and came forward, but no weapons raised above or at the perimeter. They watched uneasily as the rift spiked, amber-green crystal stabbing outward in the air, throbbing as though under assault, and the Anchor sought a chink in its armor to take hold.

A tendril of green Fade energy spiked, rippling outward from the Mark to the rift, just like in any other closure. It attempted to seal the gap in the world’s warp, and they waited for it to complete.

And waited.

And waited further.

“Something’s wrong,” Dorian’s eyes snapped shut and he took a deep breath, trying to feel it out, and then he moved forward as though being pulled against his will. His eyes opened. “The energy level is building up, it could discharge -!” And with that, he launched himself forward in a frantic sprint.

Limbs moving like weights were attached, Bull shifted forward to take off after him, but Dorian hared off like a halla on the plains, shoving Cassandra aside as he twisted his body at the hips to get around her, arms pushing her back.

“Everybody get away from the rift!” Bull found himself shouting, uselessly, startling the soldiers at the perimeter, and making the Inner Circle jerk and look up between himself and the _altus_ who barrelled down on the Inquisitor. Even as he did, the hum of energy in the air, usually sliding along on a placid crescendo with a normal rift closure, kicked itself up an octave and began an ominous, dissonant whine.

If _that_ didn’t get asses in gear, Bull didn’t know what would. Fiona and Rainier flinched away from it, Vivienne backing away toward the far wall where the dungeon door sat, sensing the impending buildup. As the whining noise unfurled, the mercenary saw Inquisitor Adaar’s body twist in mid-air, her knees buckling together slowly as she began to crumble in place, held up mainly by the link with the rift.

“ _Tadwinks, move your pretty arse!_ ” Sera screamed from the battlements in panic.

Leliana and Cullen were waving everyone back to a more distant perimeter, and Dorian launched himself bodily at the Inquisitor, shoving her aside with his entire weight to break the connection. The Fade rift didn’t want to let go of her, and the tendril of energy, which they were normally so careful not to cross over, tangled the Tevinter man in its grasp.

“ _Kadan_ -” the word was bitten out under the whine of the rift.

Cassandra was dragging Junou away by the arms; Rainier at his elbow arresting his stride toward the rift. “You can’t-!”

Dorian’s face was turning slowly up toward the rift, viewed in profile as it snapped its tendril of energy at him in Adaar’s place. His eyes were wide - he just looked so _surprised_. It was as though he’d pushed her out of a bear trap by taking her place. Now he put up the palm of one hand to ward off the strike of the golden energy which snapped out to compensate for their hubris.

The rift exploded outward, flinging soldiers and mages and even archers on the wall back in a blinding wall of light that rippled through the corner of the courtyard, cracking like thunder right overhead, reverberating through him from his horns down to his toes.

There was a ringing, desperate silence for several heartbeats. Green and white and black lights pulsed behind Bull’s eye as he pulled himself out of the dirt, the whine of silent ringing only gradually receding as he brought himself back to his feet. To his left, clear past the door of the Herald’s Rest, the Herald herself groaned and dragged herself to hands and knees, checking Cassandra for injury as the Nevarran woman stirred. Cullen, Fiona - they were thrown about like so many children’s toys across the grass and dirt.

Swaying as he rose, Bull looked up, blinking his one eye clear, adjusting his eyepatch with one hand unconsciously. The rift was still in place, but bigger - brighter, like glowing amber crystals, dominating the landscape of the Upper Courtyard and hiding half the archers on the battlements from sight.

Cullen’s voice pierced through then, as his troops moved in, coming in to cover them all and assist any injured. Vivienne had hit the brick wall rather hard, judging by the blood spatter, and he was sure there were other injuries besides. But he put all that aside, whipping his sore head back and forth as he scanned the courtyard. A scout tried to check on him, but he pushed the man aside carelessly.

“Dorian,” he called out, too loudly over the ringing in his ears. Heads began to turn his way, particularly from the humans and Dwarves with their less-sensitive hearing, who seemed to be recovering faster. “ _Dorian! Kadan!_ ”

Fiona and Cullen began to scan the landscape, and the Commander called for a headcount, even as Adaar stumbled over. Her whole body was still shaking enough that she didn’t give a shit about showing it, black hair falling in waves after being tossed, and she cupped one hand over Bull’s shoulder, ducking her head a little to avoid the swing of his horns as he continued searching for his ‘Vint.

“Find him, Cullen,” she barked, the shout powered only by adrenaline.

“Everyone else is accounted for,” the blonde-haired Fereldan scowled, swallowing hard, “...but we won’t stop looking for him, Inquisitor. I’m going to use the mages to look for magical disturbances as well, by your leave.” She nodded to dismiss him.

“Fucking Solas,” Junou muttered for Bull’s struggling ears alone as Cullen wheeled about to continue the search. No one passed near the rift. “Never around when you need his pointy-eared ass.” It had been a point of frustration for her that he had disappeared within minutes of Corypheus, but right now he didn’t give a damn. “Dorian saved me, Bull,” she said, catching his semi-frantic attention. “I was stuck; somehow he could tell. When he shoved me, it wrenched me out of the... I don’t know; the _loop_.”

Bull knew where they had both been standing, where Adaar had sprawled out in the grass, where Dorian had stood before the explosion, but there was no normal, no _rational_ sequence of events to explain why his lover wasn’t here now. His hands curled uselessly at his side - what was he supposed to do in the face of more _fucking magic bullshit_?

Staring at the rift, he knew somehow in his gut that it was to blame. He was closest to it, but if the rest of them were relatively unharmed, or so it seemed thus far, it couldn’t have - he swallowed. Dorian couldn’t be _dead_.

“He’s not dead,” Adaar agreed, squeezing his shoulder, apparently he’d said something, or… or she was the Herald of whatever after all. “There’s no way it would kill him with no trace.”

_Rifts_ , he thought, racking his brain, and then it came to him - _Adamant_.

“Could he be - _through_ the rift?”

Brilliant blue eyes widened, stretching the shimmering cobalt lines of her cosmetic, blurring as they now were with her exertions. She looked every bit as surprised as Dorian had looked when the green-gold tendril of energy had touched him. “... _Shite_ ,” she whispered.

His heart dropped into his gut.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian returns, but not quite as expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter a little earlier than planned. :) Translations will be at the end. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Short reminder regarding the Thedosian calendar:  
> Wintermarch - January  
> Guardian - February (Wintersend holiday at the beginning of Guardian)  
> Drakonis - March
> 
> TW for panic attack this chapter. Stay safe!

Progress in tracking the expansion of the rift had been exponentially slow, and progress in tracking the whereabouts of Dorian Pavus has been even slower. Even now, his troops combed every inch of Skyhold from barbican to waterfall, from dungeons to rooftops, and there was nothing. Every mage had turned out, seeking any Fade disturbances, but had found nothing anomalous aside from the courtyard rift itself. The _altus_ appeared to simply be _gone_.

Josephine had been uncharacteristically silent at their impromptu War Table meeting, but had agreed to begin the process of encouraging visiting dignitaries to cut short their visits. Many of them were still gawking at this unusual new rift, with great unease.

“At the risk of sounding callous, I hope that they will respect the fact that the Inquisition still exists for a reason, and we still have obligations,” she dipped her quill viciously into her secretariat’s inkwell, but she abruptly became unaccountably sad. “Other than dear Leliana, Dorian is the only one who will talk with me of northern fashion,” she lamented softly, and the Commander remembered that, for all their ideological dissimilarities, Antiva and Tevinter did share a border, north of Nevarra and the Hundred Pillars.

Adaar gritted her teeth in her jaw, taking the man’s disappearance personally, given the sequence of events which had led up to the moment. She had been urged by all of them not to feel responsible - that Dorian had acted appropriately to protect her - but it meant little when someone under you was MIA, and Cullen knew it by heart.

“At this point in time,” Leliana arrested their communal attention with her soft Orlesian-accented Trade speak, “We have few leads regarding either the rift, or the disappearance of Lord Pavus,” she pointed out, inclining her head. “Before he disappeared, I have been informed that Dorian requested we bring the Tranquil to bear on the issue of studying the rift.” Her eyes flickered around the table without alighting anywhere.

“I vaguely remember; he recognized how unusual this rift is,” Adaar observed, taking in a deep breath. She was still weak, enough so that she actually leaned her weight on the corner of the War Table for a change, but she was standing as firmly as she could. “After the time displacement incident in Redcliffe, we brought back stacks of written journals, diagrams - Dorian seemed to think the rift had some kind of _life cycle_ that should be mapped. Yet he also felt - and I agreed - that it felt less like a rift, and more like a Time spell.”

“I can be the first to tell you,” Cullen cleared his throat uneasily, “that magic can be combined in near-infinite forms. That surely comes as no surprise to you, Inquisitor,” he added with the due deference one ought to give to an actual practitioner of an art one had tangentially only studied all his life, “...but, at the end of the day, the combination of spells are limited only by the power and creativity of the casters involved. There is little reason why whatever has occurred here in Skyhold cannot be _both_ Fade rift _and_ Time magic.”

Cheering statement as it was, he hastened to go on, “That being said, it does behave like a rift in that it allows demons to penetrate into our world, and therefore Leliana’s point is valid. If we knew its life cycle, at this point, then we could guard against it - since destroying it was unfortunately unsuccessful.”

“What about Dorian?” Adaar asked at last, despondently, stirring from her seat. “If it _does_ behave as a rift, but it resists the controlling effects of the Anchor, then how am I to go and get him back?” Her face when she glanced at each of them was so damn _guilty_.

The women were all silent. Cullen swallowed again. “Dorian has become my… friend,” he admitted quietly. “Yet I have lived my life as a Templar; a warrior. I know that there may come a point when we may have to accept that we _cannot_ take action.” Leliana was looking sharply at him under the edge of her cowl, and he felt the corner of his mouth flicker upward. “That time has not yet come. Skyhold is surprisingly stable, so long as we remain vigilant and the situation does not change. Currently, we lack the resources to contain the issue if it _does_ change, so let us start there, and leave the worry for when we have our feet under us.”

Since he had supported her, in his own dour way, Leliana took in a breath, clasping her hands behind her back. “We will utilize the resources we do have. Fiona and the mages, if needed; the Tranquil certainly, and also, so long as we clear suspicion regarding Gereon Alexius, then he should be consulted as well.” She tilted her head. “Perhaps even if he doesn’t.”

“Really?” Josephine asked doubtfully. “Do you trust that he will help?”

“Dorian was his apprentice, once - and for _years_. Felix Alexius is lost to him,” Leliana pointed out. “Lord Pavus himself has asserted more than once that the man has now recognized that his efforts to help his son would never have come to fruition.” She turned and fixed Josephine with a steady look. “Would you not say that Dorian is the closest living person he has to family?” She asked, with all the mercy of a knife between ribs. “He saved Dorian’s life once before they even knew of one another. Does that no longer have meaning, given the new history between them?”

Cullen didn’t doubt for a moment that Leliana would phrase it to him just so, if he expressed any reluctance to help. Josephine, overwhelmed, set down her clipboard, and clasped one arm around her middle, the other hand covering her mouth, nodding faintly as she turned away to compose herself.

“He has no reason not to cooperate,” Adaar reasoned. “I don’t think he will ask for it, but if he requests privileges in return for his expertise, I’m prepared to discuss it. After all, without Dorian, he is essentially the only expert in his field. Also… keep an eye on Bull, would you guys? I know he’s pretty self-sufficient, but… you know.”

“Has anyone told Lieutenant Aclassi?” Cullen found himself asking. Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t the same. “We’ll all look after him, you know.”

Which was how, though Andraste only knew through what methods, the Maker brought The Iron Bull to lounge in Cullen’s desk chair later that night, and he himself was clutching a cool metal cup to his throbbing forehead as he leaned against the edge of the desk, legs crossed at the ankles.

“Have some more wine, Commander,” Bull gestured for his cup, lifting the wineskin. “It’s Dorian’s favorite vintage, disguised so it doesn’t get pilfered, but he guards it like a High Dragon with her nest. Now’s your last chance, ‘til he comes back and gets pissed.”

His long, friendly smile slanted up without much energy, his greenish eye looking away for a moment until Cullen uncurled the arm pressing the cup to his forehead, reaching out his hand so that Bull could fill up the battered vessel generously. “We’ll get him back,” Cullen said softly. He wondered if he’d said that already.

If he had, Bull only nodded patiently. “Your men are professionals, Cullen,” he said. “He’ll be back in no time. Only wish there was something useful I could do.”

“Welcome to the waiting room,” Cullen knocked his cup against Bull’s own cup, sitting on the top of the desk. “It’s always the worst for the loved ones waiting to find out.”

The look he got for that was… hard to describe. Wary, maybe; tense definitely. “Go easy on the four-letter words, Commander,” he muttered, his tone at ease, but laced under with just a touch of bitterness. “Not everybody’s ready for all that.”

Without knowing how he knew, Cullen set his cup down on the desk and looked the massive _Tal-Vashoth_ over. “But _you_ are.”

“Don’t know,” he said after a moment, sucking at his teeth in something akin to pretended nonchalance. “You know how it is under the Qun. Better than most, anyway.”

“So what?” Cullen picked up his cup, and sipped at it gently. “Speaking as an ex-Templar…” he cleared his throat uneasily, fighting through a breath that seemed to come with a little too much effort. “Look, what I mean is… just because you don’t follow _their rules_ doesn’t mean you don’t follow _any_ rules.”

“But you know what a mad _Tal-Vashoth_ looks like,” he rumbled ominously.

“I also know of a _Tal-Vashoth_ who fell in love with the Viscount’s son,” Cullen admitted, sipping at it gently. He wasn’t much of a wine person, but the vintage did grow on one, he was finding. Bull looked up at him, with intrigue tilting his horns. “In the end, they didn’t make it,” he raised his eyebrows sadly. “But it wasn’t - it wasn’t _madness_ that got them. It was Maker-damned _power plays_. It was _others_ who didn’t understand, or didn’t _want_ to understand what they had. But Dorian is no Seamus - he’s strong.”

Nodding slightly, Bull quaffed a generous drink from his cup, drumming the fingers of his other hand against the arm of the chair. After a moment, he looked up at Cullen. “You’re suffering today,” he said. Not a question. “I know you’ve been directing the search. You must be exhausted.”

“It’s only been a day,” Cullen demurred, shaking his head.

“Eighteen hours,” Bull murmured, rising from Cullen’s chair. “But who’s counting.”

“Thanks for lending us the Chargers,” he added as the mercenary circled out from behind the desk. “Krem seems to be looking out for Sera.”

Bull gave him a slim smile. “It’s been a long day, Cullen. I know you’ll keep your men on it, but _you_ need to rest, or you’ll be no good.”

Sniffing, Cullen picked up the taper on his desk and re-lit the odd candles on the wall that had gone out. “I will if you will.”

“I will when I can. I’m no use dead on my feet either.” But he wouldn’t sleep with Dorian missing - taken from him, potentially hurt or dead, and the _not knowing_. Cullen wouldn’t have been able to either. He’d have been tearing the place apart in more than just a professional capacity. If he were to be truly honest, it already was enough to make his hands shake. Dorian was a friend, as he’d said, but he already had so few friends.

“Want us to give you some busywork?” Cullen asked after the silence stretched like a hot toffee treat. They shared a look of somewhat amused understanding. “You could always go offer to help Alexius. I understand he’s been enthusiastically cooperative. I mean, I don’t expect you’d be a great help on the magical proportions, but perhaps you could lift all those heavy books for the Tranquil mathematicians?”

“I met him once already,” Bull mentioned casually. “Seems like he already knew who I was, in relation to Dorian, that is. That conversation was fuckin’ _fraught_ , let me tell you,” he managed a good, full chuckle. “Mostly couldn’t meet my eye for shit,” he laughed again. “Too busy thinking of me bending over the little apprentice he remembers in his head, maybe.”

Chuckling awkwardly, Cullen found himself rubbing the back of his neck and fighting the grin. As tempestuous and flirtatious as the mage was, it was hard not to… consider certain things, regarding his relationship with The Iron Bull, upon discovery. Most of Skyhold was long over it, of course. “When you get him back, perhaps you can get a proper introduction.”

“Dinner, even,” he remarked, reaching for the wineskin. “Isn’t that a thing in Ferelden - dinner with the parents?” he quipped, amused.

Before Cullen could confirm or deny, they were both startled by the north door leading to the keep’s gate slamming wide open, revealing a vista of stars in the clear mountain air beyond. The gust of Frostback Mountain chill that came along with it guttered the candles, and both men tensed, then slowly relaxed when they realized that the figure in the door had not moved beyond a showy entrance.

Blinking, and then squinting in the darkness, Cullen couldn’t place the intruder at first. A swirl of dark coat, a flutter of fur trim, the silhouette of a staff. Setting down the cup onto the top of his desk with a hollow _chink_ of metal, the Commander cleared his throat. “Identify yourself.”

In answer one hand rose, and several bright magelights snapped up into the air, brightening the office halfway to daytime levels. As the lights came up, the three parties all stared at one another breathlessly for a moment before the Fereldan man blurted, “ _Dorian!_ ” standing up from his lean on the desk.

Even as he said it, however, he felt more than a modicum of doubt cross him. Looking back and forth between himself and The Iron Bull in incredulity, the brown-skinned man was clearly their missing friend. Over the course of only eighteen hours, however, he had changed dramatically.

His attire was completely different from what he’d worn at the time of his disappearance, but perhaps, he thought inanely, the mage had stopped to change? Yet he’d never seen Dorian dress like this - the coat was loose enough below the hips to flutter, long enough to brush snow when he walked, and dark, black or almost, in a style much warmer than what he typically wore. It was lined with dark fur trim - a southern trend the _altus_ emphatically turned his nose up at without fail - and it clasped with a hook-style buckle just below the sternum. There were a few decorative buckles on it, as would be expected, but the only one of significance was the one over his abdomen. His boots were comfortably worn leather, knee-tall and plain. Likewise, his hands were covered in fingerless gloves, and if he wasn’t mistaken, the coat or the tunic under it sported a pushed-back hood as well.

The man himself looked as different from the Dorian of the morning as his attire. If he hadn’t known Dorian had no siblings, he’d have questioned it, but it was clearly him. His face was thinner and sharper - his whole body, in fact, when one looked past the thickness of the fur and cold-weather attire. He looked as though he’d been underfed for months - and furthermore, he almost looked _shorter_ , where he had always stood surprisingly eye-level with Cullen before. Looking him over again, he realized that the way he was holding his frame contributed to this illusion; his left knee was bent awkwardly and he leaned on his staff heavily.

As if that weren’t enough, his hair was different, somehow. The moustache still present, but less ornate, and something approaching an impeccably-groomed, thin goatee framed his full lips. His hair was shaved higher, the remainder pulled back smoothly into a tight bundle at the back. When he turned his face back from exchanging mutual examination with The Iron Bull, his storm-colored eyes seized tightly on Cullen’s own, so that he almost didn’t notice the scar where something had once split his skin over the jawbone and not healed completely.

 _Time magic_ , Cullen thought, baffled. If it really had been Time magic, then how long had it seemed to Dorian that he had been away from Skyhold?

“You’re here,” Dorian breathed, looking at him, and then at Bull. There was no mistaking his voice, though there was a roughness to it that made it seem he hadn’t spoken in a few hours, or even days. The Commander and the _Tal-Vashoth_ exchanged uneasy glances.

“ _Kadan?_ ” Bull asked, his voice surprisingly tentative, pitched at a lower and gentle entreaty. Dorian seemed to realize it was meant for him, but not what to make of it, looking at Bull with a puzzled expression. Carefully, he reached back and laid his staff against the wall next to the open door.

When he turned back, he met The Iron Bull’s stare, and then offered him a grin. Cullen felt himself stop when he saw it. There was something _off_ about it, he realized. Apparently Bull thought so too, because he rocked back. Perhaps because, delighted, even fond though it was, it wasn’t _intimate_. He wasn’t responding to his _lover_ at that moment.

“Of course we’re here,” Cullen cleared his throat, attracting Dorian’s total attention. “ _You’re_ the one who has been missing for eighteen hours! What happened? Where were you?” he demanded, curious but relieved.

The more he spoke, the more Dorian smiled, one set of fingertips curling within the other as though to keep them from shaking. The gaze he received was intense, and _sweet_ , he realized, flushing in response despite himself.

Approaching quickly, but more awkwardly than his normal saunter, he passed the hovering _Tal-Vashoth_ and came to him directly. Both hands reached up, long golden-brown fingers cupping his cheek, turning the Commander to face him. Under the magelights, his expression was softer, his eyes fierce and bright, a little too wet, and he sighed a full breath.

“ _Cullen_ ,” he murmured, in a broken little tone, speaking his name like it was the personal epithet of the Maker himself. Just the sound made his pulse jump into his throat in anxiety and confusion. Thumbs swiped over his cheekbones, fingertips sliding back into the hair over and behind his ears, pressing gently, as though habitually, into some of the areas where the headache struck him most strongly. “ _Cullen_ ,” he gritted again through his teeth, and pulled the two of them to meet in the middle, even as he backed him up against the edge of the desk.

Before he could even wrap his head around the move, Dorian was _kissing him_ , a fierce, hungry kiss like a starving man. Surprise led him to a gasp, a thought to protest, and when his lips parted, the mage tilted his head, tongue sliding into his mouth avidly, curling around his own so thoroughly he couldn’t even think to extricate himself. Undeterred by his surprise, the Tevinter man rested his weight against the Commander’s thighs, caught against the desk, arching into the line of his body with a small, profound _sigh_.

For all its ferocity and heat, however, the kiss ended rather abruptly, nevertheless leaving him confused and dizzy. Dorian’s teeth caught his lower lip, ever so gently at the end, sharing a breath as his lip slid free. As they parted, the _altus_ drew a shuddering gasp in the tiny space between them, standing to his full height as one hand cupped the back of his head, pressing their foreheads together. “ _Mea Bellator_ ,” he whispered, and then tightened the grip of his fingers substantially, shaking him gently. “ _Fuck_ , Cullen… if you ever do that to me again, I’ll kill you _myself_ ,” his voice cracked even as he muttered this, his face contorting for a moment as though his emotions nearly overcame him.

“Dorian,” he began, uncertainly, and licked his suddenly dry lips - that still tasted of the mage - seeing an effervescent smile cross his face at the sound of his own name. There was clearly something much more profound going on here, and he was completely at a loss. “Can we maybe back up just a little?” he asked, awkwardly, hands rising at last to press at his shoulders gently. Dorian stood, not quite seeming to get his discomfiture. “Perhaps,” he threw a desperate glance to The Iron Bull’s stone-faced expression over Dorian’s shoulder. “...you could start by telling us what in the world is going on.”

Stepping back only reluctantly, he seemed as though he would refuse to let go of Cullen’s hand once he grabbed it. He did spy the wine in the cup on the table, however, and a flicker of shy pleasure crossed his face. Taking Cullen’s cup without so much as a by-your-leave, he raised it in both hands and drank it down. Gemstones winked in the light on his rings as he turned to look at the _Tal-Vashoth_ at last.

“I missed you too, Bull, of course,” Dorian told him. “It’s been forever - too bloody long.”

If anything, the mercenary went from stony to puzzled with that. “It’s been eighteen hours,” Bull told him. “Do you not remember?” Dorian looked blankly from one man to another. “Twenty-four hours ago, we were literally having sex,” he went on boldly, ignoring Cullen’s uncomfortable cough. “What _happened_ to you in there?” he demanded.

“I _beg your pardon_ ,” Dorian replied, arching one eyebrow, though his voice was that of someone being teased by his friend. “I’m fairly sure we _mutually_ agreed that _that_ particular ship sailed quite some time ago,” he replied with a good-humored sniff. “I’ll thank you not to cast such aspersions in front of Cullen, you lout. You _know_ how delicate he is.” He couldn’t help the smile that bloomed across his face even as he said it - but it was a _happy_ smile, not a _prankster_ sort of expression.

Cullen and Bull glanced at one another again, both alarmed for various reasons. “Why… why don’t we start by calling a healer,” the Commander suggested gently. “Just - you’ve lost some weight, Dorian, and we want to make sure there were no… other ill effects.”

“Oh, the rift?” He paused thoughtfully, then finished the contents of the cup, tipping his head back. Something silver glinted around his neck, hidden under his coat. “ _Yeees_ …” he said thoughtfully and slowly. “That was rather a piece of work,” he said noncommittally. Bull tipped his head. Dorian was looking at the far wall. “Eighteen hours, you say?” His face buckled in a frown. “That is strange. I wasn’t _subjectively_ aware of the passage of any time.”

“Do you know the date?” Bull asked, squinting at him.

Dorian smiled almost serenely. “I’m afraid you’ll have to refresh my memory.”

“It’s 18 Wintermarch, 9:44 Dragon,” Bull told him, watching his face for reactions.

Frozen in place, a pause filled the room when the mage jerked to a stop, face blanching. “... _What_?” Dorian demanded, slamming down the empty cup. “...That’s not possible!”

“Calm down, _Ka-_ Dorian,” Bull raised both palms. “Why would I fuck with you about the date?” he asked, his voice deep and soothing. “Why don’t you have a little more wine?” Pulling out the wineskin, he unfastened the cap and held it out to him.

“No thank you,” Dorian replied reflexively, though the words were clipped and distracted. The Iron Bull replaced the cap, but looked at Cullen like that refusal alone was one of the most alarming symptoms. “Eighteen hours…” he was muttering, and looked up, first at the small window, and then at Cullen. Doing so seemed to distract him, however, and he reached out a tentative hand toward the Commander’s arm, not quite touching. It was as though he couldn’t believe that this were real.

Pressing his fingertips to his temples sharply, he closed his eyes and then pulled his hands away, snapping twice on either side of his head, blinking hard and looking around the room again. “I’m definitely awake,” he concluded.

“Is that your Fade Tell?” Cullen asked, intrigued. He had heard of them, but rarely got to know each mage’s unique signature to help them reconnect with their bodies in the Fade. Dorian gave him a slightly rakish grin, distracted though it was.

“Cullen,” he said, the grin falling away, eyes fastening on his, lips parting to try to continue the line of questioning. They were interrupted just before he could get much farther, however, when Adaar pushed open the door from the rotunda bridge, striding into the room at a lope as though she’d jogged over.

Jumping, Dorian backed away from her abruptly, scrambling to put himself on the far side of Cullen as she emerged into the suddenly quite well-populated office. “Cullen, one of the scouts reported - Dorian!” she exclaimed, her voice suffused with relief to see the mage standing before her. Apparently his unusual appearance didn’t particularly register to her at first, as she simply grinned at him. “Thank _goodness_.”

Without a sound, the mage’s staff flew across the room as if pulled on a string, landing in the leather-clad palm of his hand with a _smack_ of impact. Twirling it in his left hand, he at least had the courtesy to grip it in the middle, angling the focus head down toward the stone at his feet, half-behind his hip as he stared at her.

Cullen noted quickly that it was an unusual staff, with intricate carvings along the haft. Traditionally, staves held the focus at one end and the staff blade at the bottom. This staff was modified; it featured a wide, weighted flat base for traction, opposing the focus and what was apparently a staff blade on top. A leather-wrapped grip separated the focus from the blade. It seemed more like a spear or halberd in that respect, though a sort of tied leather sleeve covered the blade for safe handling. He couldn’t imagine a mage training with such a thing, but Dorian’s staffwork was exceptional, and he seemed comfortable with it.

Just now, however, his stormy, still eyes were fixed on Junou’s face, hard and searching. “Do forgive me, my lady,” he began, with a taut sort of coolness in his face that was clearly masking his discomfort. “It seems we have not been properly introduced.”

“What?” Adaar barked a laugh. “You nut,” she teased, grinning with a show of bright teeth against her dark-indigo lips. “I’m just glad you’re back, Dorian. Scared the _piss_ out of us when you disappeared.”

 _Every time she opens her mouth these days, I’m reminded of Sera_ , Cullen shook his head ruefully. “I was thinking we should call a healer for a quick check,” he suggested again, with more insistence.

Adaar nodded minutely, without looking at him. He stepped past Bull and called a guard on battlements patrol to summon a healer. He returned to his desk, both from force of habit, and because the slide of Dorian’s gaze seemed reluctant to let him out of sight. “Nice coat, Dorian,” the Inquisitor drawled, starting to see some of the weird details that were jumping out at Cullen during his earlier appraisal. “You look like you’re ready for a lovely mountain hike. Is my girlfriend having you prank me? You should wear her plaideweave next time, if so. ‘Vints dressing in all black is too on-the-nose.”

The _altus_ blinked, long and startled. “You’re dating Sera? How is that possible?” he asked, bewildered, then shook his head to clear it. “I’m sorry, _who_ did you say you are?”

Face darkening as she looked at first Cullen, and then at Bull, taking in their respective expressions, Adaar sobered. “Dorian, it’s me. We’ve been friends for years now. Junou Adaar?” This appeared to elicit no reaction from the mage. “The Inquisitor? The so-called Herald of Andraste?” her voice was somewhat droll as she parroted her unwanted appellations.

“The _Void_ you say,” Dorian answered promptly, and vehemently dismissive in his sniff of laughter. “Where is Evelyn? Did she put you up to this?”

More baffled looks. “Who is… Evelyn?” Cullen asked quietly, watching as Dorian turned and gaped at him. Apparently part of his reason for his shock was that somehow, some part of this was getting through his head, and apparently, it wasn’t going in without a fight.

“ _Lady Evelyn Trevelyan of Ostwick_ ,” he spat imperiously. “The Lady Inquisitor,” he added sharply. “The sole survivor of the Divine Conclave?” He looked around the room to find that no one was laughing. “This may be a solid jest, the lot of you, but - setting aside for the moment the fact that Evie is one of my best friends - _no_ one can effectively fake the properties of the Anchor. It’s foolish to impersonate the Herald.”

In answer, Adaar glanced at her Commander and her mercenary, and raised her left hand, letting the electric green light of the Anchor wash out into the room for Dorian to witness.

Stunned speechless, he watched her go through the cycle of calling it forth, holding it, and banishing it again, calmly as one sips from a glass of port. “That was… pretty convincing,” Dorian allowed weakly after a moment.

“So others have said,” Junou replied with inscrutable canniness. She waited a moment for Dorian to begin processing this. “So, you really don’t remember me at all?”

“N-no,” Dorian admitted, his voice small for a second, and then he suddenly seemed to remember to be angry. “No, of course I don’t. This is our first meeting, so how could I?”

The Iron Bull finally stepped up, circling around between Dorian and the open door, ready to defend Adaar if anything happened suddenly - Cullen could see the moment of change in his muscles, in the way his shoulders bunched while his hands remained relaxed. While the Inquisitor was a mage, Cullen was the only one armed, and reluctantly, he dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword.

“The way I see it,” Bull was saying slowly, his voice as deceptively relaxed as a mountain stream at the first trickle of winter thaw before the deluge, “...if anyone is an imposter here, it’s _you_.”

“I _beg your pardon_ ,” Dorian exclaimed - he hoped it was Dorian? But then, this whole encounter had been strange enough that Cullen wasn’t entirely certain. Whatever he was, he was certainly a mage. He hoped he had a good Smite in his tired old bones if needed, but equally hoped he wouldn’t need to call upon it.

“You talk like Dorian, you even resemble him to a reasonable degree, but there’s a lot about you that’s off,” Bull said, and stepped forward carefully. He reached out one hand slowly toward his face. Dorian tensed all over, glanced at Cullen almost frantically, looked back at Bull, and then there came this moment where he committed to allow it. His walls went up and his shoulders went lax, staff dropping to rest against the ground. Bull cupped his face and tilted his head up, then leaned in slowly, and took in a good, deep breath. “You even smell like him. But you _aren’t my Kadan_.”

“What,” Dorian gritted out with exquisite patience, “...is a _Kadan?_ ”

Wincing in sympathy, Cullen saw Bull take the hit head on. His eye closed, his entire body sinking by a few millimeters as the emotional blow struck him straight in the chest. Rather than react outwardly, or reply, however, he simply released their guest’s chin and backed away a step or two, until he was standing beside Junou.

One hand found his bulky shoulder, and gave a solid squeeze. “Steady on, Bull.”

“So if he’s not Dorian, then who is he?” Cullen asked after a moment, then in shock, he remembered the - rather startling greeting he had been given. His eyes flew wide and his hand flew to his mouth. “Are you an assassin?” he demanded directly.

“What? _No! Cullen!_ ” he rounded on the Commander, though fortunately for him, his staff hand stayed motionless even as he raised his right to gesture. “You _know_ me!”

“You’re saying you _are_ Dorian Pavus?” Adaar asked pointedly.

“I - I _was_ ,” he replied, biting his lip, and clearly there was more to it, but there was an earnestness to his tone when he turned toward her. “I’m still _Dorian_.”

The room was tense, and the Inquisitor took a breath. “Alright, I’m going to ask you something only Dorian would know.”

“If only _Dorian_ knows it,” he mocked his own name tightly, but about as effortlessly as he mocked anything, “...then how do _you_ know?”

“I witnessed it,” she replied bluntly. “Do you remember when you and I travelled to Redcliffe?” He tensed when she asked. “We went with a party, but you and I were the only ones who went into the tavern that day. Surely you remember.”

“ _I went with Evelyn_ ,” he snapped. “I don’t _remember_ you!”

“But _we_ remember her,” Cullen pointed out. “Dorian - if you are indeed our friend Dorian… then you must acknowledge that it is far less likely for only _one_ person to be right when everyone _else_ remembers Inquisitor Adaar.”

The pattern of Dorian taking his words to heart seemed to hold. His shoulders went limp again. “I - I can accept the premise,” he admitted meekly. “So, Redcliffe. Despite the fact that I remember it with Evelyn rather than… Lady Adaar, was it?” he asked, sounding almost chagrined. She nodded once, encouragingly.

“If you are who you say you are, you’re in no danger here,” Cullen pointed out, when Bull, for once, couldn’t rush in to fill the gap. “Just tell it how you remember it, then.”

“Alright,” he steeled himself. “Evelyn asked me to accompany her with a small party to Redcliffe. Along with us were Varric and Cassandra, which I later realized was Evie’s clever tactic to generate enough banter to distract me from the journey. My… my _father_ had sent a letter,” he admitted, the words sticking in his throat. “To Mother Giselle, asking me to be duped into travelling to Redcliffe to meet a family retainer.”

He shifted, seeming uncomfortable, and the staff swung unconsciously. The entire room reacted tensely as the focus and blade came up, the butt of the staff planting into the stone. Bull looked like he was considering a tackle, and Adaar’s hands came up to form the first shapes of a rune. Dorian noticed the switch, but after a hitch of surprise, he only leaned himself onto the staff for balance, with a small grunt. When he went on, the tension dropped off again slowly.

“Evie hadn’t realized how poor relations were between myself and my family - why should she? I didn’t want to talk about it, and Maker bless the daft twit - she’s Marcher nobility, but there’s really no comparison,” he snorted with gentle amusement. “I was so _incensed_ with her for going along with it, for _tricking_ me, I thought I’d never forgive her for it, at the time. Later, when my h- well, later, she repaid me in full, and then some.” He shook himself, sniffing once as though the cold air bothered him.

“What happened?” Adaar pressed firmly, but gently, as one would at a mild cut.

Grimacing, the man continued. “There was no retainer, only my father. He wanted to - to reconcile, he said. He wanted to see me and hear my voice, he said, but he had not _earned_ my forgiveness. I was enraged with him. He wasn’t _sorry_ , you understand,” he said, his voice low and fierce. “He never even apologized for what he tried to do to me - for the actions which drove me from Tevinter in the first place.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably, looking away toward the open door to the battlements. “Even a _five-year-old_ knows that you don’t get to just pretend bad things didn’t happen simply because it’s convenient for you.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m gonna need details,” Adaar asked again, still unyielding.

“He took issue with my refusal to marry some woman and pretend to spend the rest of my life being something - being many things, really - that I am not,” he swallowed hard. “His response to resolving this dispute was to attempt to change my nature using blood magic.” After a pause, he added, “I believe I have changed my mind about wanting some of that wine.”

It had been abandoned on Cullen’s desk at some point in the proceedings. He picked it up and handed it to the mage carefully. Gratefully, he took it, and squeezed a long stream of it directly into his open mouth, carelessly rubbing the back of his hand across his pencil-thin goatee afterward, in what was possibly the least couth gesture the Commander had ever seen from him. Though after that story, he supposed he could already consider himself shocked.

“ _Maker_ ,” he whispered as the concept sunk in, shaking his head. Bull said nothing - Cullen wondered if he’d known the whole tale already - but he did look at their intruder with a lot more care and consideration than he had done previously. The Fereldan man looked to Adaar, who was to be the judge of the tale.

“Well,” Adaar exhaled slowly. “I didn’t trick Dorian into going,” she replied, her tone grave and thoughtful, her hands finding their way behind her back as they did when she faced down a court full of nobles. “But, the letter did _request_ that he not be told where he was being taken. I thought it was dangerous. I trusted that Dorian had a _reason_ , or else there’d be no need, on their part, to request subterfuge. I suspected that it would break trust between us if I complied.”

“It was hard,” he admitted, thumb swiping idly over the mouth of the wineskin. “I love Evie, and I understand she meant no harm, but I never could truly _forgive_ that decision. I could only try to be a bigger man and live past it.” He wasn’t looking at anyone. After a moment, he looked at Junou. “If what you say is true, then I laud you on having a steady head under those horns, Lady Adaar.”

She snorted wearily, touching the bridge of her nose. “ _Please_ call me Junou. It’s just too weird to hear you calling me that with Dorian’s voice.”

Bull looked surprised. “This hardly answers all our questions. I mean, he did waltz up in here -”

“Not much waltzing these days,” he tapped the toe of his left leg against the floor.

“Why did you kiss Cullen?” Bull interrupted the interruption, ruthlessly.

“Well, why _wouldn’t_ I?” he asked, baffled. "Have you _looked at_ this man?"

“Wait, you _kissed Cullen?_ ” Adaar demanded, halfway between amused and alarmed.

Cullen for his part, blushed furiously. “Say it again, I’m sure they didn’t quite hear you in the Undercroft,” he muttered.

There was a long, long moment of quiet, and Dorian set the wineskin down on the desk with slow deliberation. As he turned to do so, he found himself looking the Commander in the eye. The moonlight shone full on his face from the tiny window behind the desk; the light from the two moons was mostly white, and they stood farther away from the magelights he had - no wait, the magelights had _dimmed_ considerably in the time they were talking.

In the light of the moon, his wide eyes were the palest gray Cullen had ever seen them; the last traces of clouds before the clear sky, and the magelights behind him fluttered out in the distraction brought about by his intense focus. Exhaustion too, perhaps; he had rarely seen the Tevinter man with dark circles beneath his eyes, but he noticed them now. Unblinking, he took in Cullen’s face, and stance, and his nervous grip on his scabbard; it caused his eyebrows to crumple together, very gradually, like mountains crumbling over time. Pain stole over his face, eyes flickering and damp, jaw clenching and then parting in a silent gasp, lines next to his eyes folding gently.

“You…” his voice seemed to give out even as he formed the words. “You aren’t my husband,” he said, a violent shudder of agony creeping over his face, reflected in his voice, and through the tension in his shoulders. “ _You aren’t my husband_ ,” he said again, almost accusingly, but also _imploringly_.

Despairingly.

Cullen opened his mouth uselessly, utterly derailed for any kind of response, his chest knotting up tight around his too-fast heartbeat. Dorian didn’t need to hear anything from him; he already knew, from the look on his face. Both hands clenched around his staff, his entire weight swaying from it as his knees weakened. Then one hand rose, wrapped around his mouth, and a few clear droplets formed at the end of his lashes, spilling over silently as his shoulders jerked.

Though the room was dim without the magelights, the two _Vashoth_ were clearly exchanging looks when Cullen glanced up at them, whispering to one another in Qunlat. Bull looked… _shaken_ , which alarmed him all the more, given that he was a former _Ben-Hassrath_. Adaar looked completely befuddled, exhaling uneasily.

In the meantime, while they debated strategy, or… whatever it was they thought about this situation, Cullen had a desperate mage who was falling apart in front of him, even as he tried to patch himself back together with what little dignity he could muster. At one point, their eyes met accidentally, and Dorian gasped loudly behind his hand, nearly losing his footing again. Silver-gray eyes closed pointedly.

In the Circles, Cullen had had plenty of opportunity to watch mages fall apart, for all sorts of reasons. The pervading attitude of the day had been pretty much to let their seniors sort them out unless they were a danger, but some had been too smart. They had often faked their emotions to garner sympathy from the Templars who were softest on them. As one of those most inclined to think well of people - at least, at Kinloch - Cullen had been called upon to begin schooling himself in those tells as quickly as possible.

It was how he was so sure, when he reached out and grabbed Dorian, that this was a true feeling, even if all about this situation was not as it seemed. He grasped the man’s upper arm, just below an artful slash in the upper sleeve, and felt the _altus_ ’ weight sway into the hold when he nearly lost his footing. He saw the lines at the sides of his eyes deepen as he tried to hold his breath, and his sob; saw the pull of muscles in his cheek that the human body only activated in true distress. Whoever he was - whatever was going on - he was in real pain.

“Hey,” he said, and regretted it as soon as he saw Dorian flinch. He made his voice a little less gentle - cooler, more professional. “Dorian, you must calm yourself,” he urged, keeping the sound of his words clipped. “There’s something strange going on here. I don’t wish to assume you are an usurper with ill intent, but there are many questions that need to be answered. We will be relying on your help for this. Do you understand?”

A small nod, and a watery gaze that the mage finally forced to take in the Commander’s face properly. He’d never imagined he’d live to see the day Dorian Pavus would _cry_ in front of him, other than in laughter across a chess board, perhaps. It shook him in a way he couldn’t quite describe, like some piece of the foundation had just been observed to be unsound. The man was sobbing silently as they locked eyes.

No, he realized abruptly; those weren’t sobs. His entire upper body _heaved_ , rapidly and fervently, like he was in the process of running a race. Cullen grabbed him by both arms and lowered his head just a little, maintaining eye contact as he realized Dorian’s eyes had widened again slowly. He was hyperventilating, the Commander realized.

“Dorian, focus on me,” he said urgently. Bull and Adaar’s speech stumbled to a halt. “Look at me, put your hand down.” The mage shook his head urgently, and Cullen grabbed him as gently as he could by the wrist, dragging it away from his face. “Look at me and breathe. Breathe with me,” he sped up his own breathing slightly to a pace just a little slower than Dorian’s panting, and the mage frantically tried to sync their breaths, lips and then teeth parting to open his airway. That seemed to help, as he got his jaw unlocked, and more air came in.

Before he knew what was happening, Bull had come around behind the desk from the far side, and was carrying Cullen’s only chair out into the open space next to them. Cullen nodded a thanks to him by turning his head aside, but he didn’t break gazes with the mage. “You’re doing fine. Slow it down now,” he made his own breaths longer and deeper, overpowering Dorian’s gasps with the sound of his own, and, up to a point, it worked.

Then it stopped working, and he grew hazy-looking. Cullen swung him to the side and slipped his hands down around Dorian’s ribs, lowering him to the chair as carefully as he could. Dorian’s left leg extended stiffly, the right one curled under him as he was accustomed to seeing across the chess board. He clasped the mage’s hands together before him, covering them in his own, making the effort to lean him forward in case he got dizzier. He got to his knees and looked up at him. “Good, you can do this. Does counting work for you?” he asked, and, ever so slightly, there was a tiny shake of the head. “Okay, what can we do?”

Closing his eyes, the brown-skinned man grimaced, then extracted one hand and reached shakily into the neck of his coat. There were two thin chains around his neck; one inside his tunic and one outside, under his coat. Fumbling with the latter, he tried to pull it out over the fur. “I’m going to help you,” Cullen announced, and followed his hand. The long chain was made of inch-long, wire-thin silverite barrel beads, alternating with tiny round beads, and he pulled it carefully out of the neck of the coat.

He didn’t get time to see it well, but it looked like some sort of medallion, a round piece wrapped in flexible silverite wire. Dorian seized it quickly between his joined thumbs and the fingers they rested against, and then lowered his forehead to press to the back of his thumbs. The _altus_ shut his eyes hard, and there were only the movements of his shoulders and the tiny squeezes of his thumbs against the metal for a time. His jaw clenched, and Cullen reminded him to keep breathing, so he forced his mouth open again.

When at last his breath had steadied enough that he wasn’t about to swoon, he raised his head a little, his eyes on Cullen’s face, though they were narrowed and dark under his lashes. Sweat had beaded over his face, and he found himself fishing for his handkerchief without thought. He handed it over, and at last, a corner of the mage’s full mouth twitched, like it might have been a fond smile at another time. He raised it in one hand in thanks, dropping his medallion as he used the handkerchief to pull himself together.

Like a punch to the gut, Cullen’s eyes alighted on the bauble in _recognition_. It wasn’t an amulet or medallion there, but a well worn, silver Fereldan coin. He took an unsteady breath. The coin had been wrapped in a wire setting and threaded onto the silverite chain, rather than being pierced. Fingers shaking, he reached out and very gingerly plucked the coin away from the front of the mage’s coat.

Holding it in the palm of his hand, he recognized the press line of the coin - an old press that was no longer used in Ferelden, though it was still in circulation - and the year it was struck, as well as a few other distinctive marks and rubbed spots of wear. Feeling the familiarity of the coin, he reached into the hidden spot in his belt where he had secreted his own lucky charm, the one his brother had given him so many years ago, and that his thumb had mapped the contours of countless hundreds of days since. The match was so identical that he knew there was no mistake. Even if someone had gotten hold of his own coin, it would be impossible to duplicate to that extent.

Dorian was watching him again, bottom lip bitten lightly, reluctantly, and Cullen could see he wanted to take his own coin back. Adaar had come closer, and was gazing at the two coins over Cullen’s shoulder, perplexed, but not commenting. “Are you okay?” she asked the mage carefully.

“...As well as can be expected,” he managed, his voice sounding shattered, but holding. “I thought…” a small sound tried to emerge, though whether it was a defensive laugh or a whine remained to be seen. “It felt like Time magic,” he whispered. “The rift was hungry, and it sucked me in,” he said. “But I thought it was the result of the same sort of magic like in Redcliffe - well, that _other_ trip to Redcliffe. I tell you, the place is cursed,” he managed a shaky chuckle.

Cullen tried to laugh at that, but all he could do was exhale pathetically, looking at the two coins. Until he moved, the Commander completely forgot Bull was hovering over Dorian’s right shoulder. Leaning forward, he scrutinized the coins, and Cullen’s own expression, but said nothing about it. Dorian reached up with his right hand, and very delicately retrieved the coin pendant from the Fereldan man’s grasp, holding it self-consciously close to his chest.

“But now you don’t think it was Time magic,” Bull concluded.

“No, clearly not,” Dorian replied darkly, his voice affected. “After all, you have told me it is the same date that it was when I entered that rift,” he pointed out. “And although I don’t know Lady -” he grimaced, “ _Junou_ , she is correct that no one else except myself, Evie, and after the fact, my husband, knew details about the second trip to Redcliffe.”

Looking down at his brother’s coin in his fingers, Cullen murmured, “It certainly does seem like a lot of coincidences.” They all looked at him. Perhaps his voice sounded odd. He looked up, clearing his throat. “But clearly… _Dorian_ ,” he allowed, with just a bit of hesitation, “While many of the details you’ve shared with us are… familiar… there are some differences. Perhaps we should…” He put his hands up to his forehead, a sudden throbbing pulse making itself known.

Adaar swooped in to his rescue. “Let’s call off the search, for right now. This is our first lead since Dorian disappeared, and everyone is exhausted.” The mage of the same appellation blinked and gazed up at her, confused. “Let everyone who’s not on rift duty go to bed. Let’s rest and convene in the morning to work all this out,” she decided. “Over breakfast, because why the fuck not. It’s gonna be a long talk,” she yawned. After a moment’s thought, and a stir from The Iron Bull, she added, “Dorian, I’m going to have to set a guard on you for now. I apologize, but it’s a precaution until we have a lot more answers on the table. Will you cooperate with us?”

“Yes,” he replied, but he was looking at the Commander when he said it. Then he blinked, sounding slightly perturbed as he glanced at her. “Do I have to sleep in the dungeon?”

She laughed. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Then where?” he inquired patiently.

“I… _oh_.” Adaar cleared her throat, awkward as the night was long. “Uh… Bull, does Dorian still have quarters in the keep?”

“Yes,” he replied slowly, thoughtfully. “But everything he needs is pretty much in my room,” he admitted stiffly.

“ _Your_ room?” Dorian parroted, turning a little to look up at him in bafflement. “Why do - _oh!_ ” For a long moment, he looked the _Tal-Vashoth_ over, up from down, and then he actually looked _abashed_. “Gracious Maker,” he whispered, but utterly without his ordinary sarcasm.

“Yes, _oh_ ,” Cullen muttered. The healer arrived then, and guessed from the way they were crowding around Dorian that he was the patient to be seen. Pushing them all respectfully but impatiently out of the way, she settled down in the space Cullen meekly vacated for her. While she worked, he ordered a pair of guards to be assigned to Dorian for the time being.

Right now, he felt like his mind was full of distracting facts - _unproven_ distracting facts, making them hardly more than fancies, really - about Dorian, and all the implications of _You’re not my husband_ , and he firmly pushed them all to the very rear of his brain. There was just - it was too - he couldn’t, not right now.

“No wonder you had a panic attack, dear,” the healer was murmuring to Dorian as she handed him a potion to drink and raised her hands, Creation magic spells glowing almost Fade-green in the light. “Under so much stress when your mana was so low. And goodness, whatever in the world happened to this leg, you poor thing?”

“Battle wound,” he grunted and swallowed the potion. “Darkspawn Ogre, actually,” he went on, and Cullen felt his eyebrows creep toward his hairline before he could school them again. “But I assure you, I was _quite_ magnificent. I saved someone very precious,” he grinned and winked at the healer with the last of his energy, giving her a lovely chuckle. “It’s quite busted, I know, but fortunately, magic combat relies a little less heavily on mobility.”

“Is that where this one is from as well?” She asked, tapping lightly the jagged scar on the side of his jaw - the same side as the injured leg, come to think of it.

“Yes indeed. Do you believe the brute actually had the audacity to _pick me up_?” he sounded scandalized. “Well, of course you believe it. Darkspawn have no manners to speak of,” he was saying, and Cullen drifted toward Bull as he half-listened. “Only the most clever force spell saved me from being…”

“Should we have him put in a guest room?” Cullen asked, and Bull regarded the mage coolly, half-listening himself. “Bull… will _you_ be alright?” he asked, knocking his fist against the horned man’s crossed forearms.

“Everyone’s exhausted. Can’t get too much in the way of answers tonight,” he said. “And we’re going to need all of our magical minds. And Leliana too, come to think of it,” he added. Then he paused and turned his head to look at Cullen. “When is Cassandra leaving for Val Royeaux?”

“Seeing that a bundle of new letters arrive for her daily, and Josephine has gotten to the point of multitasking Inquisition correspondence with Chantry missives? I’ll be surprised if she’s still here, come Drakonis,” he lamented, his mouth twisting with a regretful, if distracted, smile. “She’ll be sorely missed.”

Bull’s knowing eye fell on him. _By you,_ he didn’t need to say. “We’re all moving our own directions,” he went on. “I have another job lined up for the Chargers - non-Inquisition business this time.” He paused, and then sighed. “As if that weren’t enough, Dorian was scheduled to leave for Minrathous next month. Twenty-one Guardian, I think he said,” he shook his head. “So if - _when_ I do get him back, it’ll just be to lose him again.”

He wished he had something more encouraging to say. “At the risk of throwing around four-letter words again, love certainly is hard,” he observed. “Just as well that it never came calling for me,” he mused aloud.

“It will,” Bull promised. “I see mabari in your future, Cullen.”

He stifled a chuckle. “Perhaps that’s a form of love I can accept, then.”

“He can stay in my room,” the _Tal-Vashoth_ shrugged. “Might as well. That’s where he… well, that’s where my _Kadan_ sleeps. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.” He sounded so nonchalant that Cullen raised his eyebrows and nodded. “I’ll put a guard on each of the battlement doors. Cabot locks the tavern from inside, right?”

“Yep, and I’ll be there.”

The Commander instructed the guards as Dorian gently refused a lyrium potion, preferring to regenerate his mana naturally. Adaar joined him, and Cullen informed her of the arrangement. She promised to have everyone roused for a breakfast meeting, and he nodded, giving her a tired smile. “Get some rest, Commander,” she told him, squeezing one shoulder.

The healer instructed Dorian to stop skipping meals because he was alarmingly underweight for his frame, and he pretended nicely to care, thanking her for the spare potions she pressed into his hand - a regen potion and a singing vial of lyrium that Cullen pointedly ignored. Dorian hid it away quickly in his belt pouch. Curiously, he could no longer hear the song of the lyrium once Dorian snapped the clasp shut. His eyes lingered on it a while.

At last, his office was his own, and he climbed his ladder, exhausted and wondering if he could sleep. He stripped and laid down on the bed, watching his breath stream upward from his open, pursed lips like dragon smoke in the cold Wintermarch night. His eyes felt hot with exhaustion when he closed them, the cold air irritating the sensitive tissues the longer he kept them open.

He thought of the last look over his shoulder that Dorian gave him as Bull escorted him away, eyes that had to be torn off of him as he murmured _Good Night, Cullen_ , his name being whispered with a deep reservoir of emotion. He was so tired, as the Commander watched from the door, that both hands had to guide the staff serving to bolster his left leg, yet his back was still poised and straight, somehow.

Awkward to admit he’d never been kissed like that, he realized, and the thought made him very uncomfortable - uncomfortable in the way that his heart felt larger and fought harder in his chest, rising to strangle his throat. The Commander turned restlessly onto his left side, his breath still steaming onto the pillowcase as he reached to shake open another blanket overtop. No one had ever kissed him like the man claiming to be Dorian Pavus - like he was fucking _air for breathing_.

Honestly, he couldn’t even say for sure if he had _liked_ being kissed that way. It hadn’t hurt, or anything, though it had seemed quite presumptuous at first. But if what he indicated - implied - was true, then he hadn’t had a reason to think Cullen would be averse. Was that argument even logically sound? Or was he too tired to think straight? Closing his eyes, he sneezed against the cold and then gave in to a deep yawn.

Perhaps a part of him had always hoped there would be _someone_ who… he tried to quash that thought, but it had roots in him somewhere deep, from long ago. He’d have to dig his own damn grave to uproot it. What was so disturbing about it was that it wasn’t just flirtation like he was accustomed to - it wasn’t just sexual, even. It was _If you ever do that to me again_ ; it was his name spoken like that, the sigh against his mouth like everything was _finally_ right with the world. It was a cheap coin, treasured enough to adorn the neck of a Tevinter _altus_ \- who didn’t cry in front of _anyone_ , but cried for him because he realized _You’re not my husband_.

Tossing himself back onto his back, he stared up at the stars through his ceiling again. He was tense - disturbed, he realized. If he fell asleep like this, he’d have nightmares. But if he didn’t try to sleep, he’d be too exhausted to function tomorrow; the withdrawals would eviscerate him completely. He was too tired to get up and beat a training dummy, and he was too emotionally battered to even try to relax in some _other_ way. He got up, washed his face and neck with a little water and soap on a cloth - never mind that it was frigid - and being cold and wet but also clean helped his muscles unknot just a little, just enough to risk sleep. Finally, he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh... it's you. Back already, Dorian?
> 
>  _Mea Bellator_ : my warrior/fighter
> 
> Please let me know if I miss any and I will add them here, and I beg your patience because languages (dead ones in particular) are hard. Thank you!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bull is curious about Dorian. Dorian has a theory, and shares insights on things that didn't happen.
> 
> _“Past tense,” he agreed grimly, taking a swallow of water. “Not the love. Just the person.”_

Not-Dorian sauntered along in his wake silently. Only he didn’t saunter, not anymore, because he couldn’t. Not with that leg. Ironic that it was the same leg that troubled the _Tal-Vashoth_ in this first-of-the-year cold. He wondered in a brief flicker if this man had the same problem.

It was difficult for him to even call him _Dorian_ in his mind, because this was so clearly _not_ his lover. Yet every time he convinced himself it was all lies, all fake, he looked at the man’s face, and it was _Dorian_. Some cynical part of himself kept trying to convince the rest of him that it was an illusion, but there was just so _much_ truth to it. The evidence was everywhere throughout his manner, inflection, verbiage, facial expressions, and even habitual gestures.

They crossed the barbican in silence, and though he did not see them, Bull trusted Cullen’s guards to step up to either side of the door in their own time. He swung his door open, holding it for the injured man, and allowed him to enter first. Once they were inside, he went to shut it, and nearly ran into the mage standing motionless in the space, looking around.

He tried to see it as this… well, as a Dorian who wasn’t his _Kadan_ would see it. The same style bed, Bull’s desk and chest of belongings were all still there. The dilapidated room had been cleaned at the insistence of a haughty _altus_ , so that now there was room for a small mirrored dressing table and a wooden wardrobe he’d been instructed to carry over. Dorian called it _Convenience_. That must be because _Cohabitation_ had a way of sticking in the throat.

The dressing table caught his attention, and he drifted over. His scissors, razors and other grooming tools, his combs and pomades, a box for jewelry, and pretty glass bottles of things that smelled almost as pretty as Dorian smelled wearing no scent at all. It must have rung true with him somehow, because his expression was thoughtful, rather than disdainful. Next to the table were trunks and bags slowly being packed as he thought of things to add, gifts to take to Minrathous.

They’d been in such a hurry that morning that Bull had left the wardrobe half open, and some of Dorian’s buckle- and strap-covered fashion statements peeked out, over the boots in the bottom, and he eyed those as well. Bull’s own gear was here and there, but if anything he guessed that this mage mainly noticed the oil and ropes at the bedside and headboard. He found himself waiting for… something. The Dorian he knew would have quips, comments, questions, _something_.

At last, the staff bottom swung out and hooked the stool beneath the dressing table, dragging it out across the floor with a scrape until he hit the edge of the well-worn carpet his lover had… appropriated. The dark-skinned mage lowered himself onto it slowly after sweeping his coat out from beneath him, clutching the staff with both hands. Bull realized that whatever he had done to his knee - Darkspawn Ogre or not - he’d be completely disabled in that leg, eventually. He’d learned from his own body that there was a point between tiredness and exhaustion where you learned what your body was truly capable of, and he could tell Dorian had hit that wall.

“Well,” he said at last, catching his breath from his effort. “Bull, let’s talk.”

Grunting, he crossed the room and lowered himself onto the bed. As he stretched out his leg, he realized that they’d mirrored one another unconsciously in favoring their injuries. Dorian’s smile was as much grimace as it was commiserating humor, and there was a familiarity about it that he remembered from the battlefield. _No one can fake a person’s expression that closely...can they?_

“So,” he decided to get the opening gambit in. “You’re Dorian Pavus.”

“Nope,” he replied, a strangely casual word that he wasn’t accustomed to his lover using. “I used to be, though.” He reached into the neck of his coat and fished around for a moment, hooking a golden chain with his thumb. When he pulled it out, the warrior recognized the ornate Tevinter-style pendant that pulled free of his clothing. It was a golden sigil that vaguely resembled coiling snakes over peacock feathers - the Pavus family birthright. A ring clattered against the pendant on the chain.

“Then who are you now?”

“My turn,” he countered. Then he paused and looked around, seeming to consider his question with care. “...How long have we been lovers?” he asked at last, rather boldly.

“Not sure I _am_ your lover,” he replied.

“Don’t insult my intelligence, my dear friend,” he replied, gently reproving. “For the purposes of this conversation, let us both endeavor to be truthful, and assume one another follows that rule. You’re skilled at detecting lies, are you not?” And he waited, eyes locked.

Closing his eye, Bull took in a deep breath and sighed. “Sometime in late ‘41.”

“Goodness me,” he observed, surprised but mostly unruffled by the revelation. “It’s a bit startling to think either of us is capable of such a long-term relationship, nevermind _together_ ,” he remarked, eyebrows rising.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but it was his turn. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to ask yet, so he went with his original question. “So, who are you now?”

“No one,” he replied bluntly. He didn’t like the dubious look he was given, and he raised one hand, palm up, telling him, “It’s true!” shifting to lean his staff against the table, he started to work on taking his gloves off, removing rings to do so. “I was disowned by my family - twice over on both sides, really. My most respected mentor is dead, killed by Venatori. My position with the Inquisition will last only so long as there remains an Inquisition at all, which looks rather dubious, if Lady Montilyet is to be believed. And furthermore -” his mouth twisted, and it was an ugly sort of look, his eyes bright with regret, for all that it was a handsome mouth. “I am a widower. I am rather unmoored at this point in my life. I suppose that’s a lot for thirty-three years old, but there you have it.”

He stuffed his gloves into a pocket of his coat, and replaced his rings. The last one went on his left hand, and he studied it for a moment. “What did you choose, that day on the Storm Coast?” He looked up, his face serious and sharp in the dim light. “The Chargers, or the Qun?”

Surprised, Bull tilted his head, watching him flex his hands, and then work with the clasp of his fur-trimmed coat. In the firelight of this room, he could see champagne-gold embroidery on the edges of the sleeves. “Ask Krem in the morning.” At that, Dorian smiled, and it was something that was a little proud and a little relieved. And then it turned a whole lot sad.

“There’s a reason you asked that question. Tell me why.”

He paused, and then he thought about it for a long time. “I wanted to know.”

“Try again,” he arched his brow, giving him a hard look, but Dorian was still actually considering his answer, and so he waited patiently.

“I’m starting to form a theory about what happened,” he began. “The theory is that, while I know that I _am_ who I appear to be, it seems I am not _your_ Dorian. There are things I vividly remember that are different. And Cullen is right - it makes no sense to doubt the convictions of an entire group of people.”

“How can you be Dorian and not Dorian?” he demanded, irritably.

“Did I not just _say_ that this is mere _speculation_ at this point? I have yet to test a hypothesis I am still in the process of forming,” he scolded, but without heat. “As it appears, either everyone is wrong; I am going mad; or, this is the Fade. I don’t care for any of those options, frankly,” he admitted. “Furthermore, all of them leave unexplained the matter of the rift on your front lawn,” he raised a shapely eyebrow, his thin goatee stretching to accommodate his _familiar_ smirk as he did. “Call me conceited, but I’d rather find an explanation where no one is crazy or wrong, thank you kindly.”

The facial hair was starting to grow on him, frankly. He couldn’t help the fact that a corner of his mouth kicked up in response. Paired with the flippancy of his manner, his aggressive banter was very much like the mage he knew so well.

“Is _Kadan_ a pet name, or something of the like?” he asked, delicately, lacing his fingers together momentarily, and then he shrugged out of his coat, draping it carefully over an empty stretch of the dressing table counter. Beneath, he wore layers; a sleeveless tunic of steel-gray Samite which matched his eyes, over a long-sleeved shirt of rich crimson Highever weave, which showed through the decorative slashes of his coat when he’d worn it.

“Something like that,” he replied, resistant to the idea of sharing that secret with someone who might essentially be a stranger. “But even if your theory is right, and you _are_ Dorian, you aren’t my _Kadan_ ,” he shrugged, unable to fully fight the urge to add, “Sorry.”

He tipped his head graciously, then paused in curiosity. “Do you love him?”

“It’s not your turn.”

“But do you?” he looked up, fingers curling together again. He wore leather pants, but a size looser than he preferred because of his knee, not that it was all that noticeable to someone who hadn’t taken him in and out of his trousers on multiple occasions. He looked reasonably comfortable in it, at this point.

They stared at each other for a moment, a few long breaths being the only sound exchanged. There was some small, sheltered touch of vulnerability in the question. It was too like his _Kadan_ ; he bought it without wanting to, fully aware he was doing so. “Yes,” he admitted. It was the closest he had ever come to saying it aloud.

Something softened in his expression. “I’m glad.” He swallowed. “I loved my Bull too.”

Raising his hand, the mage pressed the fingertips of his right hand to the pulse beating in the base of his throat, breaking eye contact between them. He looked so lost for a moment. Not knowing what else to do, he rose and poured him a cup of water, carrying it over. He’d seen his _Kadan_ make that gesture multiple times, especially when feeling vulnerable. He’d always swallowed repeatedly, like his throat had been going dry. Dorian opened his eyes and accepted it with both hands, with a nod of thanks.

Bull sat down on the edge of the bed again. “Past tense?”

“Past tense,” he agreed grimly, taking a swallow of water. “Not the love. Just the person.”

Blinking down at the floor between his boots, he felt his eye widen. So he was dead, where this Dorian was from. But they’d been close. He looked up, and watched the mage swallow the water like his throat still didn’t want to work right. He touched his neck again, delicately, for a moment, not seeming to realize he was doing so.

“Whose turn is it?” Dorian asked at last, dropping his hand and looking into the cup.

“You cheated, so I’ll go.” He didn’t miss the wry smile that drew, even though it was directed down into the cup. “So. You were married. But it wasn’t to me - er, your… version of me?” He shook his head as though to clear it. “You were married to Cullen.”

“Heard that, did you?” He looked over at Bull, then closed his eyes, tiredly. “The Qun doesn’t believe in marriage,” he pointed out, still with his eyes closed. “So are you asking for a simple yes or no, or are you asking about my marriage?”

“Start simple,” he suggested.

“Well, then yes to all. Bull was my dear friend, as outrageous a prospect as that ever seemed, in those early days at Haven. But no, if you want to ask if we were intimate. We were not.” He reached up with one hand and rubbed two fingers over his temple lightly. “Cullen… well. I married him. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that made me a different man, even a better version of myself, in the ways that matter.” He hunched his shoulders in as though warding against a blow. “I can talk about that more later perhaps, but if I got into it all tonight, I’ll likely lose my mind,” he added with a lively bit of levity.

“Okay,” he said simply. “So what happened to me?”

The mage didn’t seem to notice him taking an extra turn. “Are you sure you want to hear?” he asked, a cool distance behind the question. “You won’t suffer the same fate, but you may find it disturbing.”

He considered it, licked his lips, and nodded.

Dorian picked up his staff and handed it across the room, the bladed end pointed in his direction. Confused, he reached out and grabbed it by the leather-wrapped grip, hauling it in when the _altus_ released it. “Bull and Leliana were operating on the assumption that the dreadnaught mission was a Qunari trap.”

Bull sucked in a breath that punched hard into the bottom of his gut. Junou had dropped a few disparaging comments in his presence before - at least one of her parents was a _Tal-Vashoth_ , and she had some opinions about the way the Qun minded its store. He’d tried his best not to wonder if she was right, but maybe it had finally been long enough that he should be forcing himself to look it in the face. Especially if… if anything this Dorian was saying was true, if there were other Bulls and Lelianas out there, somehow - though the idea was madness - who had reached the same conclusion.

“They weren’t sure who the trap was for,” the _altus_ went on, cautiously. “Perhaps it was more of a door than a trap. Either way,” he gestured with one hand, leaning back one elbow against the dressing table, the way his _Kadan_ had done during his morning - afternoon - ablutions, “... either the trap would spring by giving the Qunari a foothold to the south, or the trap would spring on a _Ben-Hassrath_ agent they were reasonably sure was already compromised, as judged by his good standing with the Inquisition and lack of salacious details in his reports back home - as verified by _Viddathari_ spies seeded into the ranks, perhaps? They knew they were sending a hundred men to die, but lives are their easiest-gotten collateral,” he observed succinctly.

Bull looked at him sharply, seeking the condemnation in his tone. It was there, but it wasn’t as caustic as he was expecting it to be. “Don’t get me wrong,” he added wearily with a wave of his hand, seeing that look. “I find their methods despicable. But I’m hardly naive enough to think that Tevinter, or Orlais, et cetera, would shy away from such methods themselves. Though perhaps they’d see about just sending a few scouts first. Ah, then again, I suppose that was _you_ , wasn’t it?” He shrugged, but it was the sort of shrug that was more about the tiredness in his shoulders.

“So we walked into it like it was a trap,” he prompted. While he listened, and dealt with the churn of feelings that stirred up like mud from the river bottom, he looked at the staff. The grip between the round, gray-blue focus gem and the staff blade was wrapped in perfect, even leather strips. The carving of a Griffon, of all things, disguised the mounting screws of the blade. It looked like Rainier’s work, as he did in the barn, come to think of it. He ran his fingers over the smooth, well cared-for wood, trying to find the texture soothing. 

“Indeed. Only, _my_ Bull chose to bend the rules once he got onto the battlefield,” he went on. “He followed the letter of the rules - two groups, one to take each point - the Chargers on one hill, and the Inquisition troops with their _Viddathari_ contact on the other. He chose to interpret the rules to say that he should stand with his Chargers. That unpleasant Elven fellow tried to object, but he couldn’t do so without giving away the plan, now could he?”

Something burned in his chest - an anger he’d thought long quenched. His eyes rose from the carvings of leaves and aqueous swirls in the wood as the mage shifted; Dorian’s teeth showed briefly in a snarl, leaning back on his elbow again, turning at the hip and lacing his fingers together as he stared at the far wall. “The Chargers fell, to a man,” he growled. “Evelyn shamed the Qun into honoring their bargain in Bull’s memory, though of course, we had no one who could vouch for us as to the complicity of our supposed allies.”

Even now, he looked like there was a rage still simmering inside, eyes molten silver and beautiful. “The funeral was fucking lovely though, Bull,” he added bitterly. “Everyone cried themselves sick. Also, I’ve literally never been that drunk in my entire life. Reasonably sure I passed out on the staircase to the Great Hall and seven people tripped over me. I’ve forgotten most of the rest of that day, and the two that follow it, so that’s how you know everyone sent you off proper.”

Despite his mixed feelings, he managed a harsh chuckle. “I don’t know what’s more messed up; that hearing you say that makes me feel a little better, or that you knew that I’d say so,” he pointed out, and somehow that sanded the rough edges off of the Tevinter man, even earning him a smile.

“Well, you saying so makes _me_ feel better, if it means anything.” He gave a wistful, fond smile. “Sera got dehydrated and almost died of alcohol poisoning,” he added thoughtfully.

“Aw, I love her too,” he muttered distractedly.

At last, he found the part Dorian had apparently been attempting to show him. Right below the focus of the staff was more leather wrapping, and a portion of it was sort of lumpy, uneven. He turned it toward the light, digging into the folds of leather cord. He was perhaps less surprised than he should have been to find an eyepatch identical to his own braided right into the leather, the edges secured in place with leather wrapping strips, secure enough for this section to be used as part of the grip.

“Sorry for your loss,” he muttered. “Losses,” he added. Dorian had the grace to look chagrined. “Thanks for answering the question. Maybe next time I’ll listen to you when you tell me I maybe don’t want to know,” he added dully.

“I’m sorry, Bull. I’m sorry,” he said, and he rose to his feet, walking over with his odd gait, hands alighting on both his shoulders. “Maker knows it can’t have been an easy time for you either. Sorry I made you feel worse about what happened.” He sounded truly regretful.

“People always have _what if_ kinda questions,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t know, maybe I just got one of mine answered.” He tried to think about how it made him feel, and the answer wasn’t as simple and sure as he wished it would be. “I think it makes me angry, yeah, but… I think it also makes me feel better about my choices, not to have to spend the rest of my life being manipulated like that. I don’t know. The way your Bull died - it wasn’t the worst way he could go,” he pointed out. “In fact, it’s exactly the way I always expected I would go. Only it was with Krem and the boys instead of alone, or with strangers who didn’t give a damn about him. So, it wasn’t so bad.”

Dorian was still bending over him, and for the moment, he saw someone he cared about, and who cared about him back. Even if it wasn’t his _Kadan_. He reached up and put a hand on one of the ones resting on his shoulder, meeting the compassionate gaze on his, though with some reserve still. “I couldn’t have made that choice,” he admitted. “By then I had you - I mean, I had…” he shrugged, clasping the mage’s hand tighter to avoid dislodging it. “ _My_ Dorian. He changed everything, and so… I don’t think I could have just died like that.”

He squeezed each shoulder tightly for a long moment, and then gave him a good shake, letting him go as he stood back upright. “Well,” he declared. “Regardless, apparently this Inquisition does better with you in it.” Standing a few steps away, he put both hands into the small of his back and stretched, yawning widely as he faced away. “I’d be delighted to keep going,” he said, turning and taking his staff back. “However, I’m quite exhausted. I’m not your _Kadan_ , but I take it I’m being invited to sleep in your presence?”

He twitched up the corner of his mouth and nodded. “As long as you can keep your hands to yourself,” he warned, half-seriously. “I’m in a committed relationship, you know - and assassination attempts just make me cranky.”

“Oh, someone is civilizing you, then?” Dorian quipped back at him with a half-hidden grin. “Not with the effort of improving your _wardrobe_ , clearly, but at least you’ve been in the presence of a wardrobe,” he jerked his head at the furnishing in the corner. It felt comfortable, that banter. “I’ll do my best to contain myself.”

He gestured to the bed, and Dorian kicked off his boots, lowered himself and stretched out in his clothes. Bull found the pile of spare blankets, and opened them over him, like he’d’ve done for his _Kadan_. “I know it’s cold, but are you at least comfortable?” He hummed an affirmative. Then he sat up, and took his hair down.

It was thicker than he’d realized, and longer too. It fell down to his collarbone, and he ran his fingers through it in a hasty scrub. While it was mostly straight, there were parts of it, particularly where the lighter-weight strands fell around his face, that wanted to curl. It was arresting, and his own lover had never allowed any part of his hair to get that long. Bull couldn’t help but watch him tie his hair into a better style for sleeping comfortably, and lay back down again, yawning against the pillow.

He climbed onto his usual side, under the blankets Dorian had laid upon. Like this, they would be a touch uncomfortable and though they would be mostly tucked together, there wouldn’t be a lot of direct physical contact. He checked on him again, and then let him be. Dorian didn’t fall asleep at first, and neither did Bull, staring up into the darkness with his horns balanced above the pillows. It sounded like his _Kadan’_ s breathing next to him.

After a while, he said, “Dorian.”

“Hmmm?”

“If you had to say one thing you loved about Cullen, more than anything else, what would it be?” he asked, idly. He thought about the pale blonde ex-Templar, whom he’d always found about as invigorating as a dripping icicle, outside of a battlefield. “Not some vague bullshit like _his heart_ or something.”

Chuckling, faced away from Bull, he made a thoughtful noise. “Thinking,” he said slowly. “Love, not _like_ or _find attractive_?” he clarified. The _Tal-Vashoth_ made a noise of assent. “I know what it is, but I don’t know if it’s a quality in and of itself, or a combination of two things.”

“Okay, hit me with it.”

Sighing softly, he shifted under the blankets. Bull heard the muted metallic rattle of chain in his hands. “I always marvelled at how _dignified_ he was,” he mused softly in the dark. “Even when the worst shit in the world was happening around him, or even _to_ him. Not to say he was always exemplary, but he was never the type to fuss, or cry, or make a damn mess of it. Not like me, I suppose. He was dignified without being overbearing - by that I mean, he had a lot of self-respect. Humble, without being self-effacing. The result was a man who kept his head without being insufferable or the opposite, bending over backwards. Whether that is two qualities, or that they expressed by virtue of that self-respect alone, perhaps only better heads than I could explain.”

“That’s what you choose for _love_?”

“Well, since it’s you asking. Yes,” he buried himself deeper into his blanket. “ _Love_ is the part that would keep you around when it was the only thing left. I’d say something shallower to a shallower person, probably, but I expect you can understand,” he explained. “...The fact is, when you tell me to think about how I _loved - love_ him still - I remember being so fucking _proud_ to be his, because of things like that.”

Thoughtfully, he made a noise like he was processing that. Inside, it made parts of him turn over and feel upset. He couldn’t call himself _dignified_ or _humble_. He’d never even thought his _Kadan_ would respond to things like that. The fear that he’d misjudged Dorian more than he’d ever anticipated made him feel a little sick. “Thanks for telling me. I’m not sure it was _useful_ , but it was certainly interesting.”

“ _Useful_?” he scoffed, laughing quietly into the dark. “I thought you’d already bagged your quarry, my fine horned friend?”

“I mean,” he shrugged even though the gesture was useless in the dark. “If your background was like my Dorian’s was up until joining the Inquisition… well, he hasn’t changed a whole lot since then.”

“That’s terribly disappointing,” he murmured, evocatively. “Not at _all?_ ”

“He’s better at some things,” he smiled sleepily. “He’s better at telling me what he needs. A little better at taking me at face value.” A snort of laughter. “Way better at letting me do crazy things with him in bed _._ ”

“Well, there you have it,” Dorian laughed along with him, his shoulders shaking with his quiet chuckle. The pause that followed the death of that laughter was long, and Dorian’s voice floated to him at the edge of his hearing. “That’s not nothing, Bull. Honestly,” he promised. “He’s accustomed to being treated like exceptionally pretty garbage. You basically convinced him to fly in the face of his entire upbringing. It’s going to be slow, even at best. I should know. I used to be that little bastard once.”

Unexpectedly, he sat up, and shifted under the blankets to face him. “I’ll teach you a couple of tricks,” he said suddenly, as though inspired. “Though you might know them already, you devastating _Ben-Hassrath_ , you,” he teased.

Laughing again, Bull glanced down at him without moving his head. “Okay, what?”

“First one’s the hardest one. You’ve got to let him take care of you every once in a while,” he pointed out. “Start small - don’t let him get his ego inflated. Just let him feel like he did something good for you, if insignificant. You’re thinking, _that sounds easy_ , I know you are,” he poked one finger into Bull’s shoulder. “But it’s not as easy for you as you think it is. You know everything all the time, and I bet it drives him nuts.”

“Sometimes,” he admitted.

“So let him run a long leash and trust him to come back. The second one’s easy. Don’t startle,” he warned, “...I’m going to touch your neck.” He made an acknowledging noise, appreciating the mage’s caution. Apparently he at least recognized tight nerves when he saw them. Gently, the long fingers of his right hand came up and rested, very lightly, against the base of his throat, the front lower right. He waited patiently.

“I learned this from Cullen,” he admitted, sounding a little reticent, suddenly. “He’s the one who realized it, and taught me. I didn’t know this about myself, that I had a nervous habit of touching my neck.”

“I’ve seen it,” he offered. “I always thought maybe his throat felt dry. It seems to come up under stress,” he added.

“In Tevinter, one cannot afford such an obvious tell, you know,” he pointed out. “Did you not realize that?” Grunting, Bull had to grudgingly admit that he hadn’t thought of that. “It only developed down in the south. If you see him touch himself _here_ ,” his fingertips pressed just a little harder, “...it means he feels insecure. When C-” he swallowed hard, and his voice came out harshly strangled. 

It sounded like a stranger who continued, “When Cullen saw it, he would put his hand on me, right here,” and as he said it, he lowered his palm to rest on Bull’s collarbone. It made the touch seem so much weightier than it was with just one small human hand, but without obstructing his breathing. The hand spread out just a little more widely on his collarbone. “It might look a bit restrictive,” he remarked, striving for detachment, “...but it makes m- _him_ feel… solid; grounded. Even if it’s heavy, it feels _safe_.” He swallowed loudly again. “He doesn’t know how to feel _safe_ on his own.”

 _Fuck_. Bull blinked up at the ceiling, in the room now too dark for them to see one another’s faces. It just made so much fucking _sense_ , and he had never seen it up until then. He felt so unaccountably _incensed_ at himself. The hand lifted away, and he had to admit, he felt the demonstration of it, in a subtle way - like the safety of a touch telling him his lover was securely at his side. In fact, the withdrawal of that winter-chilled hand was a familiar sensation, not quite routine from their nights together. Dorian - his _Kadan_ \- may not have known what he needed, but he’d still been trying to find ways to _show_ his lover what he needed to feel. Perhaps he’d even unconsciously obliged on occasion, while restraining, or when they toyed with breathplay - but it wasn’t the same.

“Don’t tell him I told you,” his bed companion burrowed back down under the blanket. “The last thing _I_ would want is any more excuse to be pissed off at _myself_ ,” he snorted. Rolling away, he pulled up the blankets almost to his ears. “I’m sure you figured it out already,” he yawned deeply. “I have faith in you. Goodnight, Bull.”

If he hadn’t been so exhausted, he would’ve stared at the ceiling all night. Instead he drifted off a few hours before false dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for riding along so far! This might be my favorite chapter between Bull and (alt)Dorian, even if it's a bit short.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen has breakfast with Adaar, a letter from Mia, and a meaningful talk with Skyhold's newest guest.
> 
> _“Firstly, Cole,” she began, “Is this Dorian Pavus?”  
>  “No,” Cole replied after a moment’s consideration, and the mage’s lips tightened just fractionally, though he sipped at his water glass, mask of nobility in place. “He was, once; but never again._ You are no son of mine.”

His guards advised him that their guest had not stirred until just after dawn, an hour at which the Commander was wholly unaccustomed to seeing the likes of Tevinter mages. He’d risen and departed the room without the company of The Iron Bull, wrapped up in his long black coat and his hood, and trying not to shiver. Word was that he’d greeted his guards through a yawn, and vaguely wondered if he might head over to the kitchen so that the two who had stood the night in the cold might each get a cup of coffee from the cooks? Alright, since they’d twisted his arm, he’d take a coffee as well.

Caffeinated and wincing his way up the rotunda stairs, Dorian had taken a trip through the library, combing the shelves for any signs of useful literature supporting his topic, trailed by a magelight and two guards who were still chilly but of improved disposition. There was little enough that he found relevant, it seemed, and begged the indulgence of his guards to help him carry his books and writing supplies down the stairs, as he needed his hands for his staff. Cullen scowled when he realized they had complied, as it wasn’t exactly part of their job description, and could be a security risk as well, but the mage’s disability seemed real enough that he could hardly fault their decency.

Down in the Great Hall, the _altus_ had encouraged his guards to take on the additional duty of guarding the fireplace along with guarding the mage, appropriating the seat at the table that used to be occupied by their mouthy Dwarven friend, before he had returned to Kirkwall. Guard rotation had found his two guards warm and toasty, even slightly chatty, with Dorian bent over a sheaf of paper covered in drying ink and diagrams, sleeves pushed back away from the path of his writing.

The mage had greeted the replacement guards by name, sneezed violently, casually damned the Wintermarch cold and the Frostbacks at large, and gone back to his work. During the time between his arrival the night before and the guard rotation, the rift had opened twice and released two groups of four to six demons. During the second release, he had started out of his seat at the noise, but by the time he and his guards had made it to the entrance of the Great Hall, the patrol stationed in the upper courtyard had dispatched the demons, and his assistance was not required, so he’d returned to his seat by the fire.

He’d sent a four-page report to Dagna via a runner, and requested the presence of a mathematically-inclined Tranquil, who had joined him by the time the nobles were stirring. Leliana and Dagna had reviewed the report and would share their findings at Adaar’s breakfast meeting. Cullen waved this information away when the runner briefed him, not sure why he needed three separate reports on their prisoner within as many hours, but unwilling to chastise anyone attempting to do their job. He sent the runner away with a note for Bull to bring Krem to the meeting, superfluous as he likely would be, with apologies in advance for the man’s impending boredom.

When they were all shown into the War Room, where the map had been bundled away to accommodate a lavish breakfast spread on the ancient tree stump which served as a table, Cullen was one of the last to arrive, given the time he’d spent putting their current predicament to the back of his mind and catching up on paperwork. As they settled in, Bull and Krem entered the room, while Dorian was still standing and taking in the sight of actual _chairs_ in the War Room.

Unexpectedly, the mage seemed absolutely delighted to see Bull’s lieutenant. “Cremisius!” He spread both hands, limping over to him and catching him up by the shoulders. “ _Avanna!_ It’s good to see your face!” He gave an air kiss to either side of the startled man’s face, but with cheek contact, unlike the Orlesians. Dorian held him at arms’ length and took him in. “Oh, you look so _well_ ,” he observed, then bit his lip and laughed aloud. “But of course, you have no idea what I’m talking about, or why this strange former _altus_ is so excited to see you.” He patted the man’s pauldrons with a grin and released him. “No matter.” Krem blinked stupidly.

Junou was smiling at her fellow mage with puzzled but warm partiality as Dorian released the mercenary and patted Bull’s arm in silence before turning back toward the stack of papers he’d left on the table. As he did, he came to be facing straight toward Cullen across the table, and their eyes met. Cullen felt something jolt in the air, like static, and his breath caught in his throat. Dorian bit his lower lip, just a little, trying not to let on that he was containing a tentative smile, and dropped his eyes to the papers in his hands. _Maker preserve me_.

Whoever this person was, flashes of Dorian Pavus of Minrathous flickered in and out, but were supplemented with glances of a person that Cullen, at least, had never known. It was as though all of the flirtatious joviality the real - the Dorian he was accustomed to, he corrected himself - worked to portray was just a little more _genuine_. There was a little more joy to be with the people he saw than Cullen, or indeed most of the inner circle, was used to. Still, from time to time, he gazed out the tall windows at the far end of the room, looking isolated and solemn, very far away from the moment, pupils contracting in the light to leave his eyes all in silver.

The mage kissed Josephine’s knuckles and teased her about her arranged marriage, which Cullen hadn’t even been made aware of. She blushed heavily, and Dorian apologized sincerely for letting out a secret she’d been preserving. He let her off the hook and turned to Leliana, asking her when she would be travelling to Val Royeaux for her investiture. She looked at him strangely and sharply, informing him that it was in fact Seeker Cassandra who had been chosen to assume the role of Divine Victoria. Dorian apologized again, looking gobsmacked, and heartily congratulated Cassandra, commiserating on the upcoming role politics would be assuming in her life. Then he rubbed his forehead briskly with his brows up, promising not to make any more faulty assumptions if he could help it.

Rainier and Sera arrived and Junou started pushing people over toward the table gently. “You know how I feel about bare plates,” she was saying. “No one can think clearly on an empty stomach, so get a few bites in and then we’ll get down to things.”

“Oh, beg pardon,” Dorian cleared his stack of papers out of Vivienne’s way, and folded them up, shoving the sheaf into his coat. As if on a whim, he pulled out the woman’s chair and gestured with his chin that he would push her in. Surprised, she acquiesced, and in return tolerated him to take the seat next to her. Plates and bowls were passed, and Cullen picked at a spoonful of bacon and eggs on his plate, feeling unrested and nauseous.

After he’d moved his food around enough to look convincing, he took some time scanning around the table. Sera had migrated to Adaar’s lap, and was basically eating off of her plate, occasionally pressing a kiss to her horn. Cole was experimenting with inappropriate combinations of food as he crouched on his chair; in this case, apparently the tomato sauce for his eggs and the jam for his biscuits had gotten switched around. “They’re fine like this,” he assuaged Rainier’s puzzled questioning.

Vivienne and Leliana were holding a conversation in Orlesian just to hear one another over the general chatter, both of them eating as though they were at table service with Empress Celene herself, and Josephine weighed in from time to time in the same tongue. Bull and Krem were trading stories with Cassandra, and the _Tal-Vashoth_ mercenary was practically begging for bragging rights to say he’d arm-wrestled with Divine Victoria herself. The Seeker laughed aloud.

Dorian, on the other hand, was looking straight back at Cullen across the table, at just a slight angle from one another. He didn’t look pleased - he looked worried, rather. His eyes dropped significantly to Cullen’s plate, and his lips pursed in concern. He held up one hand, palm spread wide, and mouthed the words, _Five bites? Please?_ Both palms meeting in the middle in a beseeching gesture.

Irritated and embarrassed, the Fereldan man cleared his throat, and dropped his eyes to his plate. He wasn’t accustomed to drawing attention to his condition, and he was tempted to feel a little resentful, but if he fussed about it then _everyone_ would get nosy. Five bites wasn’t too much to ask to be left alone, he reasoned, and raised a mouthful grudgingly while he glared across the table. Yet Dorian looked quite pleased with him, and nodded encouragingly as he went for his second bite. His stomach rolled, but then settled under the weight.

At last, Junou pushed Sera back into her own chair so that she could eat her breakfast in peace, and Sera finally elected to take an interest in the Tevinter man across from her. “Hey, sparkly magey, what ‘appened t’ your _face_?”

“Oh, it’s a rather sad tale,” he began in a lamenting tone, “involving _your mother_ , you see. She was quite put out when she discovered I was prettier than she.” He raised his fingertips to the scar on his jaw, a mark as wide as at least two of his fingers, speaking of a once deep abrasion, which added a touch of ruggedness to his otherwise classically handsome countenance. He didn’t seem self-conscious of it. Cullen had always assumed Dorian would be, if he’d ever gotten a mark like that. “We had to call the guards, charges were filed, and the magistrate _wept_ at the extent of the damage.”

Sera gawked at him a moment, torn between a laugh and a scowl. “Pretty sure he just slipped in a joke about my mum.”

“Slipped your mum _something_ ,” Dorian muttered, not so quietly. Then he winked at her. 

Delighted, Sera let loose a high-pitched giggling fit. Not exactly the response anyone at the table had been expecting, but she certainly seemed less tense after it. “You aren’t right,” she said, after a moment. “I mean, it’s _funny_ , but ’s not somethin’ you’d say.”

“Dark pathways; only light one tunnel alight at a time,” Cole began, chiming his fork against the side of his water glass, tilting his head to listen. Since spending time with Maryden, he had become quite musical. “Dorian of Ferelden, now,” he added, “but when the Queen made her gambit, you turned away because your King had already fallen.” He tilted his head up to look at the mage from his end of the table, under the brim of his hat. “ _I’ll return soon, my love_ , but he came home on his shield. You should’ve listened to Mia.”

Cullen felt as though someone had dropped ice down the back of his neck at the sound of his sister’s name. “Ah, Cole,” Dorian saluted the Fade spirit boy with his water glass. His voice didn’t shake, but it sounded hollow. “It’s good to see that some things stay the same.” He took a sip from the glass.

The rest of the table got awkward, as things tended to become around Cole. The Inquisitor cleared her throat, toying with a chunk of fruit on her plate. “Cole,” she began. “I want you to answer a few questions for me, but can you do it without violating Dorian’s privacy?”

“I’m sorry, Dorian,” the boy said automatically. “I will do my best.”

“Thank you,” she replied, and glanced at Dorian. “I’ll keep it brief, but I want everyone on the same page.” The _altus_ nodded, pressing his lips together. Cullen’s stomach had turned to lead, but he forced himself to take his fifth bite, then wiped his mouth with his napkin. Dorian glanced at him, and his eyes warmed briefly even if his face wore the haunted melancholy it had borne between conversations throughout the start of their meal. “Firstly, Cole,” she began, “Is this Dorian Pavus?”

“No,” Cole replied after a moment’s consideration, and the mage’s lips tightened just fractionally, though he sipped at his water glass, mask of nobility in place. “He was, once; but never again. _You are no son of mine._ ” He looked at the mage. “Was that too personal?” A corner of Dorian’s mouth flickered upward, then a tiny shake of his head.

“But he was _born_ Dorian Pavus - like the person we recognize as our friend?”

“Yes,” Cole replied indifferently.

“And he is human - not someone who has been possessed, nor someone who has come here with intent to harm anyone?” Adaar pressed. “I ask because I think everyone in the room trusts your accuracy and honesty, Cole, and it will be easier to communicate if there is no doubt.”

“Dorian wants to help,” Cole replied spiritedly. “He doesn’t always have the best ideas on how to help, but… Varric said no one is perfect.” Dorian’s smile returned, somewhat longer and more wryly. There was affection in it too.

“He’s told the truth to us so far?” the Inquisitor asked.

Cole turned and looked at Dorian for a long, long moment. The mage turned and looked back at the boy, letting out a long breath slowly. Whatever it was the spirit boy saw, he turned and said, “You haven’t asked any questions, except about Redcliffe, and he was honest about that.” He paused. “Bull asked him questions last night, and he was honest about that too.”

Cullen thought, _That isn’t a Yes_ , but it also wasn’t a No. As far as he was concerned, the answer meant, _Ask more questions_. He resolved to do just that, and frequently. He glanced at Bull, who was looking at the mage as well, but guarding his expression well.

As he’d expected, Bull cleared his throat. “Cole, where is Dorian from?”

“Tevinter,” the boy answered, nonplussed.

“You had that comin’,” Sera snerked at him.

“Yeah, okay,” he grinned and scratched at the base of one horn. “Let me ask it this way. Where was _this_ Dorian before he arrived here? Before our scouts saw him?”

“He was in Skyhold,” Cole replied, though he seemed to have to search for the answer. “Dorian believes it was Skyhold, but it wasn’t the same as here. I… I can’t see exactly,” he replied, mystified. “I know what he saw, but I can’t go there, I can’t see it for myself,” he added, and this seemed to confuse him further.

“Is it because it’s through the rift?” Bull asked, and Cole looked at Dorian again, then closed his eyes as if feeling the air.

“...Yes. I think so.” The table stirred, the group trading uneasy glances.

“Is that where _our_ original Dorian is?”

“I can’t feel that,” Cole replied, hat hiding his face. “I only know he’s not _here_.”

“So, this is Dorian, but he is not from here. But he _is_ from here. Are both of these things true?” Adaar asked, wording the question as carefully and hesitantly as one could imagine.

“Y… yes,” Cole decided. “I think so. I think they are both true, but I can’t _know_ they are both true. I don’t understand.”

Junou stopped to comfort him. “It’s okay, Cole. I don’t expect anyone here to know everything, even you, despite the fact that your abilities are so exceptional. You helped.”

Cole looked relieved, and Dorian spoke up quietly. “Thank you, Cole, for helping.”

“Are you angry?” Cole asked, sounding repentant.

“Do I feel angry to you, dear boy?” Dorian asked kindly.

“No; you’re very different from our Dorian,” he responded. “You mostly feel sad.”

“Well, sad isn’t angry. Now eat your jam and eggs. Maybe just try syrup next time.”

Cullen watched Cole promptly forget the gravity of the situation and pour maple syrup onto his eggs. “You’re right, this is better,” he mumbled around a bite, not quite skilled enough to remember not to talk with his mouth full. Food was still new to him, after all.

The Inquisitor watched the boy who used to be Compassion eat his sloppy eggs, and the Commander watched the man who used to be Dorian Pavus sip at a cooling cup of tea, trying to disguise his fingers shaking in the Wintermarch cold. Under sunlight streaming through the full-height windows, his skin glowed a rich golden bronze, fingers glittering. “Is everyone satisfied enough that we can work with… well, our _new_ friend Dorian?”

“I expect you all to watch me like a flock of Leliana’s beady-eyed little birds,” the mage quipped, but flashed around a surprisingly warm smile. “I shall do my best not to let all the extra attention go to my ego. You’re all welcome to watch me up close over a chessboard or a deck of cards during the duration of my… well, _stay_ , for lack of a better word,” he grimaced.

“We appreciate your cooperation so far, Dorian,” Adaar smiled, glancing up from where she smudged a streak of butter off of Sera’s cheek with her thumb. “I remember you saying last night that… well, where you come from, for lack of a better way to put it… I’m not the Inquisitor?”

“No,” he replied, setting teacup in saucer, too well-bred to make a noise. He raised his napkin and patted his mouth carefully. “The Inquisitor and Lady Herald is Evelyn Trevelyan of Ostwick, as I mentioned to you before.” He went on to describe the start of her integration into the Inquisition, and Cullen noted that many of the details matched Adaar’s own circumstances.

“Since its inception, the Inquisition has allied with the Templar Order, whilst the free mages of Ferelden were absorbed by the Venatori,” he grimaced. “Corypheus and his second, Calpernia, assassinated Empress Celene at Halamshiral. Emperor Gaspard took the throne, but Briala of the Elven resistance is manipulating the Orlesian throne behind the scenes,” he explained with a tiny expressive shrug. “The Inquisition marched against the Venatori and Gray Warden forces at Adamant; the Champion of Kirkwall was lost in the Fade. Then the…” he took an unsteady breath. “Then we marched on the Arbor Wilds. Evie asked Morrigan to drink from the Well of Sorrows, and she aided us against the dragon in the final battle with Corypheus.”

“There are a lot of differences there,” Leliana noted, keenly interested. “Where you are now, Lord Pavus, Celene holds the throne and Briala holds a position as a Marquise and the Empress’ paramour.” The Tevinter man’s brows rose and, oddly enough, he looked to Vivienne for secondary confirmation that he’d heard correctly. She nodded sedately, pleased to be consulted. “The Inquisition allied with the mages of Ferelden against the red lyrium-corrupted Templar Order and their commander, Samson. Warden Stroud was lost in the Fade, though it seems the battles in the Arbor Wilds and at Haven proceeded in a similar fashion.”

Cullen felt a familiar chill of anger at the mention of the former Templar.

Dorian cleared his throat. “I’m disinclined to be a bother, my dear Sister Nightingale, but would it be too much trouble for you to address me by name?” he asked, wincing slightly.

“Why?” she asked bluntly.

“I’m no longer a Pavus, nor a lord of anywhere, for that matter,” he replied, steeling himself. “At best, I can properly be addressed as _Ser_ , if you must, but Pavus is not my name, and I don’t care to hear it again.”

She considered it a moment, and then decided not to pursue it directly. “Dorian, then.”

He gave her a grateful look. “It’s strange to hear where the similarities fall,” he mused aloud, moving the conversation along forcefully. “May I share with you some of the theories I have been working on today?”

“Please do,” Adaar tilted her head, her curving horns glinting in the light from the window. Cullen pushed his plate away, sliding his hands back into his gloves. Dorian fumbled the papers he was withdrawing from his coat, and they scattered onto the floor.

“ _Blasted -_ ” he began, and scooted his chair out, easing himself down onto the ground with some difficulty, given his injury. He scuffled his papers together for a moment, until even Vivienne took pity on him.

“Would you like some help, my dear?” she asked gently.

“No no,” he replied. “Though if perhaps you would take your stiletto off of that paper… thank you, my lady,” he said with a sound of strained good grace. He sat upright again, and shook his papers free of any imagined debris away from the table. Then he sorted them into order whilst frowning at them.

As differently-kempt as he looked with the deeper undercut and the new facial hair and fur trim, he still had the habits of a well-bred scholar in terms of his treatment of paperwork. “Now, I sent a report along to Dagna this morning - I thought perhaps she could enchant some temporary plinths to encircle this rift and maintain an area with a _Dispel_ effect. It would help give some poor soldiers a break, though it only addresses a portion of the problem.” He handed a copy of his work to the former First Enchanter for review. She nodded faintly and perused his handwriting, looking puzzled for a moment until she was able to ascertain which end of the page was up.

“In the meantime, I’ve sat down with one of the Tranquil,” Dorian went on, and passed a few pages along the circle with a gesture toward the Inquisitor. “We’ve begun mapping the timing of the manifestations and growth patterns observed so far in the rift. Now obviously, there will be some flaws in the data due to a lack of careful observation heretofore,” he waved a hand distractedly, “...but we should be able to come up with a mathematical model predicting the future growth of the rift with a reasonable margin of error - barring new developments from _either_ side, that is.”

“You came through this rift yesterday evening. You’ve been able to do so much without even studying it yet?” Adaar asked, tilting her head at him cautiously. Cullen felt a bit of relief; obviously if world events at this Dorian’s origin were different, then people could change too. She wasn’t presuming him to be exactly the same man she knew.

“I haven’t _done_ anything yet,” he blinked at her. “All I’ve done is compile the data you passed along to the Tranquil, and some secondhand reports from some of Cullen’s soldiers.” His use of the Commander’s unadorned name was unaccustomed, but not enough to prompt any reaction, and the color hiding in the single word seemed to go unnoticed as well. The mage didn’t even glance across the table at him as he passed another page around, in the odd event that someone on the other end - such as Cassandra, or The Iron Bull perhaps - might have some interest or knowledge of the background of abstract thaumaturgical theory, as unlikely as it sounded. “If you’ll let me near the rift - preferably with the consult of Madame de Fer and a few other skilled mages - then perhaps we’ll know more.”

“And risk things getting worse?” Adaar’s question was blunt, her eyes narrowed. “So far, we have no evidence that this rift is equally dangerous to everyone - we were all in proximity of the rift, and I even tried to close it with the Anchor.”

“You _what?_ ” Dorian demanded, eyes wide. “That was _incredibly dangerous_ , Inquisitor!”

“Junou, Dorian,” she reminded him tolerantly. He ignored it.

“You had no idea what it could do!” the Tevinter man went on.

“Well, it didn’t have much interest in me once our Dorian pushed me out of the way. But it took him instead,” she pointed out, her dark brows knitting. “If we can set things back to rights, I want to get him back, and get you back where you should be as well.”

Pressing his lips together, the mage made no response, eyes still on her. Cullen thought he looked surprisingly troubled.

“So, I don’t think you can observe the rift up close, for now. It’s a risk. I’ll ask Madame Vivienne and Grand Enchanter Fiona -”

“ _Former_ ,” Vivienne reminded her, voice placid as a poisoned lake.

“...to head up the process of observing the rift for now,” the _Vashoth_ woman went on, ignoring the interruption. “We’ll re-evaluate the risk to you as we proceed and learn more, Dorian,” she went on, not uncharitably. “Who knows? You could end up somewhere worse than this,” she joked.

Dorian smiled for her, but it didn’t reach his eyes. The reports were collected together, and everyone began standing to leave the room. Josephine called for servants to clear breakfast from the table, and offered to be available to the _altus_ for lunch or any other considerations he might require in the meantime, and Dorian nodded respectfully to her and half-bowed to the Inquisitor as well. His eyes flicked over to Cullen and locked in for a long moment. He wasn’t sure if he could say what things he felt pass between them, but Dorian graced him with a faint nod, and a glance at his plate, accompanied by a subtle smile of praise, then turned and saw himself out of the room. He squirmed with the uncomfortable dual reactions of validation and annoyance, trying to ignore the warmth in his belly.

“Should we continue the guard upon him?” Cullen asked the Herald as their friends began to disperse. She looked at him assessingly, and sucked her teeth casually.

“Well, Cole vouched for him,” she concluded. “It will be a show of confidence to Skyhold to let him go along on his own. I wish there were a way to watch him without… watching him, you know?” she replied. “Maybe you could check in on him?” she asked, as casually as he thought she might be able to. “You know… _considering_.”

Painfully loaded, the word fell heavily between them, and Cullen winced, fingers reaching up to squeeze at the bridge of his nose. “ _Andraste’s_ -” he bit off, and sighed deeply. “I’ll… invite him to chess or something,” he mumbled, not sure how he felt about the whole thing.

“Just not outside in this cold,” she teased him. “Don’t forget he’s a northerner.”

“Fereldans do feel the cold, you know,” he groused, fighting the curve of his lip against her teasing. “We’re not Avvar.” He waved a hand at her and the other advisors. “Go on ahead. I’ve got this - I’ll set the map back up.”

She thanked him and saw herself out, talking with Leliana as she did, leaving him the last one in the room. He spread out the map and supplies, reconfiguring the map mostly from memory and a quick check against the prior session notes. The servants were clearing the chairs out of the room when he turned away to look out the window.

He didn’t want to think about the idea of this strange rift, this foreign magic in Skyhold - a portal to demons that even Adaar couldn’t close, and what it had done to Dorian. What if someone else got entangled? What if the situation became even more complicated?

“Commander? You dropped your letter.” A servant stood to hand him a folded parchment, then picked up an armful of chairs and departed, letting the door swing shut behind him. Glancing at the paper, Cullen frowned. He didn’t remember receiving a letter recently, and this one looked quite worn. Perhaps it had had a difficult journey on the roads, or been buried in War Table supplies? Pulling open the flap with the broken wax seal - perhaps he had read it after all and forgotten - he unfurled the soft-sounding paper to refresh his memory.

_To Ser Rutherford of Skyhold_

_From Mistress Cedric of South Reach_

Recognizing his sister’s handwriting, he raised his eyebrows and went on. He never remembered her addressing him in this way; usually it was with his current titles.

_My dear Dorian,_ the salutation began, and Cullen’s eyebrows shot upward. Instinctively, he turned away from the door, spreading the letter wider in the sun, even though he was alone in the room. It was dated _6 Firstfall, 9:43 Dragon_ \- just over two months ago - and it was certainly Mia’s handwriting, even down to the flourishes, the type of paper, and color of ink she typically used. But clearly, it wasn’t _his_ Mia. He told himself he shouldn’t read this, but … he was involved. Sort of. Breathing an apology, he continued reading.

_I am always delighted to hear from you, and in this case particularly so. I want you to know you can always reach out to me. No matter what happens, I will want to hear from you. I used to tease my brother that I knew you better than I knew him, what with his abysmal writing habits. I’m glad you decided to continue writing me._

_The twins are well, but our youngest has some fool notion of jousting, thanks to a book on Orlesian Chevalier that his father has purchased. Stanton thought of the Templars for a while - he did so look up to his uncle - but Cullen’s admonitions against it were enough to deter him, I think. Thank you for your concern, but he hasn’t spoken of it in some time. Cullen said there were ways he could help protect those who needed help, without wearing the Lyrium Leash. Perhaps it’s a little selfish of me to wish someone had said the same to him once, though he had his way of being set on a thing once he’d made up his mind. Doubtless it contributed to your Inquisition’s cause._

Cullen stopped and thought. His Mia had two children; a girl, and a young boy. There was no _Stanton_ here. It was a heartwarming notion, to have a nephew as his namesake, and of his grandfather before him. He wondered if this, too, had been another small possibility that life had selected or discarded in Dorian’s world. Taking an unsure breath, he returned to the letter.

_I have explained to them that Cullen is gone, life given in service so that those villagers would survive the flood. The twins are old enough to understand, but Jaycen doesn’t, yet. We’ll have to tell him again when he’s older. I’d have liked for you to have seen the children, but it was better not to bring them to the funeral. I couldn’t believe you and your mages made it so that it could be delayed, so Bran and Rose and I could make it from South Reach and say goodbye to Cullen properly. You delayed your own mourning for us, and I’ll never be able to thank you enough._

_I understand the Inquisition has given you the framework of a purpose in your grief, but I hear whispers of uncertainty regarding the future intentions of your organization, in the public houses and in the broadsheets. I don’t share the sentiments, you must know; but I do worry. If Cullen were still with us, I wouldn’t say anything, as the Commander of the Inquisition army would not be able to abandon his post, and you’d not be parted from him. But at this point, I know you’re aware you don’t have to stay. Please spend some time thinking about the future you want for yourself without him._

_I find myself sleepless of nights, wondering and rueing the time I lost with my brother. I wanted him to feel like he had his space, could be his own man - and I’m not stupid; I hardly think he came out of that life unscathed, after Kinloch and Kirkwall. His silences spoke more loudly than his words. But I see now that I should have pushed him harder. I should have been nosy. He should have had me there even when he was too proud, or scared, to ask._

_I didn’t, and I’ll always regret it. But he had you, and I’m thankful. Did you know that when he did write, he spoke of you often - long before you were married, or even (by Cullen’s pristine standards) even officially courting? He said that you were handsome, charming, infuriating, and brilliant - one of the finest minds he had ever encountered. Also, that I was never to tell you so, because there’d be no living with you. (Sorry little brother! Secret’s out!)_

_I say that because I want you to understand my worry, Dorian. Your last letter was not in character for yourself. You don’t have to pretend with me, Maker knows - but I know you were brought up differently from us. From some of the stories Cullen has shared, I know you’re not a man to bow down to the unacceptable, even if it also happens to be the inevitable. It’s this quality which drove you to help fix the sky, and the same quality that had you throw yourself between that Ogre and Cullen in the Arbor Wilds. This time, however, I fear that your own brilliance will lead you astray._

_As your older sister, I aim to extract a promise from you. Consider yourself bound by this promise just by reading these words. You will not take any action to try to negate Cullen’s passing. I hate having written it, but he would hate you putting yourself in danger even more. Promise me you will do nothing foolish. No blood magic (yes, I know, chastise me later), no Time magic, and don’t think you can make any loopholes with that necromancy of yours. I don’t know how it works, but I’m not leaving you any wiggle room._

_We all say and think crazy things when we are in pain, but I’m not going to sit back and lose another brother without doing something. Cullen left you his name so that you would always have a family to come home to, and as far as I’m concerned, you are a gift left behind from him to us as well. I want you to come to South Reach this year, Dorian. You will join my family for Wintersend, and you’d best pack extra socks, prepare yourself to give gifts and magic displays to the children, and be ready to stay for at least two weeks._

_No objections! You’d best believe that if I don’t receive a letter from you in perfect agreement by First Day, I’ll bundle the children up against the cold and cart the whole family up to Skyhold if I have to. I have it on good authority that Inquisitor Trevelyan and Ambassador Montilyet would let us move in, if we’d a mind to, then you’d never be quit of us; so be a good boy now, little brother, and you’ll save yourself some trouble. We have much to talk about. It’s going to need a lot of hot tea and wine. See you soon, like it or not, my dear._

_Maker keep you,_

_Mia_

Cullen closed the letter slowly, gazing at the paper itself absently as he absorbed the easy affection she bestowed on the man who was essentially her brother-in-law. The paper, he realized, was almost fraying at the seams, where it had been folded multiple times. There were small wrinkles where the letter had gotten wet here and there, in little round colorless spots. _Tears?_ He didn’t know. The ink was a little blurred here and there, and the edges had been dogged and furred by friction and travel, faint marks of accidental foldings, a dent on the back side where the letter had been pressed against the wax seal to keep it flattened.

She’d never pulled her punches in her letters to her brother, so it stood to reason that her exchanges with a more verbose brother-in-law would have been even more spirited. She’d also apparently taken to bossing this mellower version of Dorian around as she had all her younger siblings - with only the best of intentions, of course. It rang true for Mia in many ways.

Still, perhaps he’d been unprepared for all the knowledge about his - _his counterpart’s,_ he reminded himself - death. About Mia’s feelings for him, which for all the superficial differences could hardly be all that different from his own sister’s. About the funeral, about Dorian. He closed the letter firmly in his hand, smoothing it gently into order. It was a lot. He rather wished he didn’t know.

Hearing a small sound, he schooled his expression as best he was able, calling upon years of experience guarding mages, and turned around toward the door. He was hardly surprised to have to face his knowledge of the letter before even having brainstormed a method to return it anonymously, but there Dorian was, closing the War Room door behind him. Pausing, he seemed like he was fighting against the need to move closer. At last, however, necessity drew him into the encounter that perhaps they had both been dreading.

When he circled the War Table, the light fell on him, causing him to blink into the morning sun until his eyes contracted again, turning back into those black-fringed silver pools in the bright glare. For a long moment, they just looked each other over. He saw a man who presented himself very differently from the Dorian Pavus he knew, and did it without shame and with a minimum of vanity.

For the first time, he noticed that the fur trimming his cloak appeared to be exactly the same as the fur of his own mantle - the black fur streaked with deep red, too similar to think it was anything but a remnant of the same garment. It was another sign of _ownership_ , in a way - the coin, and the scars, and the fur - as though he belonged to more than just himself now. Something in his chest surged, and it was unfamiliar and disorienting. He’d never seen anyone, man or woman, so willingly, and gracefully, marked in trappings like they were _his_. 

He hardly knew what the mage saw, but he could see it _affected_ him. There were things happening on Dorian’s face that he was struggling to lock away behind the expression every noble child learned to emulate long before they were fully grown. At last, he cleared his throat, and his eyes dropped to the letter. There was a touch of relief to see it, but then a stiffening of his posture as he realized that Cullen had read it. After a short struggle, he saw the mage _decide_ not to be embarrassed or ashamed of it.

“I can hardly blame you for thinking it was addressed to you,” he managed at last, his voice dropping into the velvety lower registers he used when he was uncertain, or flirting. In this case, he seemed shaken more than anything. “However, you are holding a piece of my correspondence, and I would like it back.” One hand rose expectantly.

Cullen didn’t bother to protest. Instead, he simply placed the letter into the Tevinter man’s hand. Their fingers did not touch. The mage pulled the hand back to his chest, palm pressing the paper against the fur trimming his shoulders, drawing a breath. It was his left hand, Cullen realized, and he was wearing what must have been a wedding ring on his next to last finger. Rose gold, he thought; simple, for an _altus_ , but with an elegant decorative flourish surrounding a row of three gemstones, crimson, amber, and clear. He thanked Cullen for returning the letter, though it was hardly more than a murmur.

Stowing the missive back into an inner pocket of his coat, he gathered the long folds again, arms crossed over his chest as though he were cold. Neither of them spoke much for a moment, until their eyes caught by accident, and of all reactions to have, Dorian gave a surprised riff of weary laughter. “Oh my,” he glanced past Cullen’s shoulder toward the empty space behind. “What a lovely elephant you have in the corner of the room!”

Glancing behind him with a frown, Cullen caught the tone of a joke, and felt himself start to relax a little, despite things. “What’s an elephant?”

“Goodness,” Dorian looked like he had plenty to say about that, but he swallowed it down and said, “I imagine it’s a bit like having a _Vashoth_ Inquisitor must have been at Halamshiral,” he opined. “It stands out in the ballroom but no one has the nerve to talk about it?”

“That sounds about right,” he snorted. Then he paused, frowning. “So we were, ah…”

“Yes, we were _ah_ ,” he replied, arms curling a little tighter around himself. “Which you know, if you read the letter.”

“Right,” he added. “Um. Mia seems to like you.”

“What’s not to love? I’m charming and I enjoy spending yo- my husband’s money on gifts for her children,” he managed a faint smirk as he waved it away. Cullen rewarded the effort with a strangled laugh, and the former _altus_ smiled a little more gently. He forced himself to relax his arms a little, and they settled crossed further down his chest. “That’s not what you want to ask.”

“I don’t want to impose,” he said, using the implication of politeness to mask his own anxiety. In truth, he wanted to know everything. He’d thought… well.

“I have a weakness for lovely Fereldan ex-Templars,” Dorian bantered back, as easily as he might have done across a chess table. “And it’s normal to have questions. Ask. I’ll try.”

“I suppose I have questions about everything,” he found himself saying, his lips moving only a little, feeling sort of numb. “I sort of thought... that there would be no one in my life, from here on out,” he admitted. “I was… at terms with that idea.”

Blinking a little in the light, Dorian finally lowered his arms, winding them both behind his back instead, standing a little awkwardly in light of his injury. “I’m sorry for bringing such upset to your balance,” he offered. “I’ll tell you what I can. Do you want to know about our relationship, or…” he paused and bit his lip, hard enough for the skin to turn waxy white around the corner of his teeth. “Or about how my husband died?” he asked, tension creeping into his voice.

“He was… at Kinloch, and Kirkwall, Mia’s letter said,” he began. “Was he… like me?”

Tilting his head, the mage studied his face. “Far more alike than unlike,” he ventured.

Cullen took a deep breath, pressing forward. “I mean… it seems there are small differences,” he tried to explain his way of thinking, frowning. “But there seem to be enough similarities for things to remain in context. Why is that?”

“I don’t know,” Dorian replied earnestly, but heavily. “I… read a paper once, when I was a young man in Minrathous. It essayed a theory regarding the formation of alternate versions of our world,” he went on hesitantly. “Though the author acknowledged that there were no true ways in existence to test the hypothesis at the time, she speculated that major decisions we make in our lives could serve as the point at which new possibilities branched off into existence. She proposed the argument that, for every decision not taken, a world existed somewhere where that decision _was_ in fact chosen. In short, that people created entire universes, numbering into the infinite and ever expanding; and that, as a result, all possibilities in fact do coexist at the same time.”

“That’s… fascinating, but sounds impossible,” Cullen struggled to wrap his head around this. “You mean, like a world in which you m-married me, and also a world in which you are in a, um... long-term, er… _passionate_ relationship with The Iron Bull?” he raised an eyebrow, earning a scoffing laugh from the mage. “Or you could say _loud_ ,” he grumbled plaintively. “Your relationship with him is _loud_.”

Dorian again laughed helplessly for a moment. “An infinitesimally small example, but yes. Like that. Or where the Inquisitor makes completely different decisions because she was raised as a _Vashoth_ apostate mercenary, and not an Ostwick noble. Those are the kind of changes that affect thousands,” he pointed out. Pausing, he laughed again. “ _Passionate,_ is it?” he asked, laughing openly as he dropped his head, scuffing the toe of his bad leg against the stone. “I suppose it would have to be. In my world, at least, he and I had less in common than you and I.”

“Do we, in fact, have anything in common?” Cullen asked, realizing how harsh the question sounded even as he asked. Dorian tilted his head upward, looking almost coquettishly up through his eyelashes for a moment.

“You and I -” he paused, frowned, and adjusted his terms. “ _He_ and I came together like a painting,” he said at last. “He was all blue and gray - isolated and orderly. Like ice, freezing everyone out.” He swallowed and raised his chin more fully, looking at him almost straight on. “I was orange and yellow, like fire, out of control and consuming all in my path, even myself. No one could get close to me, any more than they could him. But when we touched, he quenched me, and I … thawed him,” he quirked a little, private smile, his gaze turning inward. “We balanced; made a complete picture.”

“That’s a very… colorful image. Um, pardon the pun,” he remarked, taken aback.

“I most certainly will _not_ ,” he replied promptly. “That was terrible; you should feel bad.”

It was _so Dorian_. He couldn’t help but laugh, even though he was blushing, at the thought of all the _quenching and thawing_ he’d be wondering about all day. “What, ah… I’m not sure what to ask,” he rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.

“What would it serve you best to know?” he mused. Cullen didn’t know exactly what he meant by that, but he could see the other man thinking it through carefully, his hands coming out from behind his back, fidgeting with his wedding ring as he thought it through. It looked more like the body language he was accustomed to from their mage, and it made it a little more comfortable.

“Are you asking me?” he wondered.

“Not a chance,” he replied succinctly. “I’ll decide for you. Spousal prerogative,” he flashed his teeth in a quick grin, and glanced away. “Alright. How about we keep it simple,” he decided, and then he dropped his hands, looking Cullen in the face directly. They were so close in height, and the sudden very direct attention startled him.

Dorian reached out and grabbed his hands, but gently, curling his fingers into the palms of the Commander’s gloves. “Cullen, _mea Bellator_ ,” he said. He felt awkward, but allowed his hands to be held. “I know _you_ are not the man who took vows with me, but from what little I have seen and heard of you so far, I feel strongly that you are much like him. Know this; you are worthy of affection, and you are worth respect, from yourself more than anyone. Do you understand me?” He didn’t seem to want to blink as he spoke, his hands shaking the Fereldan man’s just slightly. “You’ve judged yourself too harshly for too many years, and unless I miss my guess, you’ve hindered your own journey into recovery with self-sabotage. This is the knowledge I give you: no matter how low you feel things have gotten back in those dark days, you do deserve to be loved, and to feel happiness. You’ve atoned enough.”

With that, he raised both his hands, pulling Cullen’s fingers along with them. He was still reeling from the sharp dagger of words that had been thrust into his lungs, and was unable to fight the kisses placed on the backs of his curled, gloved fingers. Something squeezed his heart as Dorian’s eyes closed, lashes dark and damp on his high cheekbones - such a finely-wrought thing he was - and they squeezed just a little harder as he pressed his lips into the Commander’s knuckles. He pulled their hands down again, eyes opening, and gave them a last little grip of pressure before letting them go. “If you’ve more questions later, you may seek me out, if you wish,” he said, stepping backward once before turning to limp toward the door to the War Room, letting himself out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Avanna_ \- Good morning (canon Tevene, not Latin!)
> 
> Happy Thanksgiving 2020 y'all. We've almost made it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bull and the alternate Dorian swap stories. Dagna joins the team, and Dorian meets a familiar face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving 2020 guys. Half of us may be stuck at home, but I gotchu. Enjoy an early chapter!

Since the morning of their breakfast meeting, there had actually been relatively little opportunity to speak with their out-of-water mage. He’d disappeared early in the morning after their only real conversation - he’d sort of sensed the movement, but he was close enough to Bull’s own _Kadan_ that his subconscious hadn’t seen fit to wake him - and they had hardly been in the same room since, much less alone. He’d slept in Bull’s room again, but was already out like a candle when he’d arrived up the stairs from the tavern, departing early again. The night-owl _altus_ seemed long gone in him.

He happened to get a glimpse of the sun shining through the large focus gem on the man’s staff the next day, while he was walking through the Great Hall. He’d had half a mind to check on the _altus_ , despite no particular invitation to do so, but had found only a Tranquil attending some observation reports Fiona and Vivienne’s mages had sent. When he saw the man alone on the First Enchanter’s balcony, however, he made up his mind to pursue.

Climbing the stairs and bypassing Ma’am’s fancy Orlesian furniture, he paused, watching a ripple of chill breeze fluff the dark-skinned man’s coat around his ankles. In his hands appeared to be an early lunch; a basket from the kitchen sitting in its own lid, a sandwich inside with some strange, chunky-custard looking filling.

“If I had any doubt, now I _know_ you aren’t my _Kadan_ ,” he chuckled. “I can’t imagine him eating something that looks like that.” Surprised, Dorian looked down into the basket, and then grinned to himself with an unself-conscious shrug, reaching into the basket and extracting a handful of cut carrot sticks to nibble on. He aimed a fond, if distracted, smile up at the warrior. Bull reached a finger over and scooped a bit of the yellow filling that had leaked out of the bread onto one digit, popping it into his mouth. “What the hell? Is that egg?”

“Rutherford family recipe for a ghastly-sounding concoction referred to as _egg salad_ ,” Dorian pronounced the words with the appropriate amount of northern disdain. “The egg is certainly in evidence, but the salad portion is debatable at best.” Despite that, he took a bite and then brushed a hand idly over his facial hair. His eyes were fixed to the golden glittering rift, watching a team of non-magical recruits assemble a series of wooden pillars around the rift, each affixed with a rune. “Sadly, lemons and pomegranates seem to be in short supply in Ferelden. Ah, the things to which one becomes accustomed, hmm?” His tone was lightly conspiratorial, given that the both of them were clearly pretty far from where they’d first started out, and he huffed a laugh as he moved to lean on the railing next to the mage.

“Still mad they won’t let you go play with the scary weird magic?” Dorian favored him with an amused, gray-eyed look, and ate another bite of his sandwich. “You sure are pretty Fereldan these days, aren’t you?” Bull wondered aloud when he seemed disinclined to answer the first part. As he did with most things he didn’t understand, he poked and prodded until little kernels of truth started to pop out. “Never thought I’d see the day. Put down roots, have you?”

A sharp but lazy look assessed him. The mage certainly hadn’t gotten any dumber.

“Just wondering how _my_ Dorian stayed so much the same, and _you_ ended up changing so much for Cullen,” he went on, wheedling to get a better reaction out of a man he didn’t expect to be so strangely placid. “It’s a little weird, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps,” the former _altus_ allowed laconically, taking another careful bite, and swallowing. “Why?” he asked after a moment. “Did you _want_ your lover to change?”

“No,” Bull replied, surprised. _Maybe a little_. Maybe if it meant his _Kadan_ felt the same attachment that had, ever-so-quietly, snuck up on the _Tal-Vashoth_ like an assassin at dawn. 

He wasn’t sure if Dorian caught the traitorous notion, though one dark brow rose. It was the first time he noticed a faint scar in his left eyebrow. “Did you _ask_ him to change? To meet you halfway on a few things?” Dorian had celery in there also, though not for long. He watched it disappear behind little neat bites.

“He’s good enough how he is.” Dorian was startled enough by this revelation to stop eating entirely, and looked up at him, both brows rising in a measure of surprise he didn’t bother to camouflage. Then a warm smile - just a stone’s throw past his usual smirk - spread slowly across his face. Bull couldn’t help but return just a little of the smile back to him, an undercurrent of conversation taking place on just that look alone.

Presently, the Tevinter man turned back to his lunch, and stared into the middle distance contemplatively, his expression turning somber. “I cannot speak for your paramour, but I… _needed_ to change. Not because Cullen asked me to - he didn’t, in fact - but I changed regardless, because I wanted something different for myself. Something unlike what I was raised to expect in Tevinter; something that I saw in him. _Kaffas_ \- I just wanted _him_ , and meeting him halfway on a few things was worth the effort.”

He put a few carrot sticks in Bull’s hand, and he found himself nibbling on them distractedly as he digested that. It was true enough that Bull’s lover clung tightly to his patriotism, in ways this new Dorian didn’t seem to care to do. Swallowing another bite of his sandwich, the mage continued, “I don’t know what moment in time served as the swaying factor here, but the end result is, _your_ Dorian didn’t need Cullen; he needed _you_ ,” he asserted. “If he doesn’t change, and I do, I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that it has at least a bit of something to do with the difference between his life with you and my life with Cullen.”

The Iron Bull bit down a touch of sulkiness that wanted to emerge at being called out on it. It was his own insecurity, pure and simple. He wasn’t raised to accept it, but he could hardly fail to recognize the sensation. This Dorian had a unique perspective on the situation, and he tried to remember that as he glanced at him with a huff of breath. “...Bet you got a pack of little mabari waiting for you at home,” he smirked.

“Bite your tongue!” he returned without batting an eye. He sighed through an aborted bite of his sandwich, setting the bread back into the basket. “Though, I was honestly thinking of getting one for our first anniversary.”

It felt like an admission, the way he said it. Unable to resist the allure of secrets, he tilted his head. “Oh yeah? Why didn’t you?”

Without a change to his inflection, Dorian looked back at the rift, lifting a sandwich triangle again, just to give himself something to do with his hands. “Cullen just died last Solace,” he said somehow without flinching, but his eyes lost all focus on the distance toward the front gate to do so. “We were only married in Guardian.” Then he quickly took a full bite of the sandwich, ensuring his mouth would not be able to add any unwanted observations to that factual statement.

_Five, maybe six months married, six months widowed,_ Bull’s internal count told him, stricken. The mage was still staring over the lower courtyard absently. “Fucking _Void_ , _Kadan_ ,” he muttered, the endearment slipping out unintentionally. “‘43 was a hell of a year for you.” 

Dorian made a sound, though it was hard to interpret as agreement or _fuck off_ or anything he might recognize. “Best and worst year of my life.”

“...You should still get the dog.”

“I beg your pardon,” he laughed, swallowing his bite quickly. Wiping the back of one hand over his mouth again, he laughed a little more once he ensured he wouldn’t choke, though it still sounded almost strangled. He grabbed a handful of carrot sticks out and passed the bowl to Bull. “Finish this for me. I hate to waste food.”

There was that reminder, again. _Dorian_ never said things like that - always too busy with his beautiful mind gallivanting off to the next project to think about what was left in his wake. Practicalities were someone else’s problem. So Bull ate the weird egg salad and stood with him for a while. “Tell me some good stories about your world. Sounds pretty different from ours.”

“That’s just it - how am I to know?” Dorian asked, grimacing. “So many details are different, but there’s a lot that’s the same!” He took a minute to tell Bull about some crazy research paper he had read theorizing that multiple universes existed, based on one’s choices causing divergent paths. “It was dinner conversation at a few fancy salons for a while, but no one had any idea how to prove anything. If there was even a modicum of accuracy in it, why is it that our worlds are _so_ similar?” He was shaking his head.

“Listen,” Bull told him, sighing heavily. “I leave that theoretical shit to guys like you. I just want fun gossip.” Dorian laughed unreserved, looking over the courtyard from Vivienne’s balcony. Despite the rift and the bevy of interested mages surrounding it, Skyhold was quiet. He nudged Bull’s elbow with his own, and it was warm.

“Hmm, well let’s see if I can think of one I _know_ you wouldn’t know.” After thinking about it, he smirked. “So, since there’s no Inquisitor Adaar where I’m from, Sera was hooking up with Dagna,” he slid his hands under his opposite elbows against the chill. “Not that it will mean much to you, but our Evie was quite sweet on a certain scraggly faux Warden. Let him open all the doors for her and everything.” Bull laughed at that, humming in interest. “They were working out pretty well, truth be told, both pairs. Oh!” He snapped his fingers. “Did I tell you about the time Queen Anora of Ferelden proposed to me?”

“You _know_ you didn’t, asshole,” Bull glanced over at him with his good eye, watching Dorian warm up to his topic with a little laugh. “Also, you’ll never make me believe it.”

“Oh, she’s a stone-cold bitch, that Anora. Charming woman.” Dorian chuckled again. “They were up her arse night and day about _securing the bloodline_ and whatnot - terrified they would track that Theirin boy down and set him to take the pointy hat back, you know how it is.” He grimaced rather dramatically. “Given my background, I felt bloody sorry for her, frankly. I almost just asked her if she wanted to go get drunk with me.”

“You must be referring to King Alistair,” Bull smirked. “He’s married to Anora, here.”

“Ew, she married her dead husband’s bastard brother?” he wrinkled his brows and nose. “In Tevinter that would be _gauche_ , and we’re as depraved as they come, you know. Of course, it is terribly practical, I suppose,” he shrugged. Bull smiled at the banter. “Anyway, she has to marry a noble, but she doesn’t want anyone with the status or support to be an actual threat to her throne. Plus, after Cullen died…” he sobered.

“You don’t have to,” Bull told him gently, but he shrugged and shook his head lightly.

“Well, Evie has possibly ripped the head off of every Fereldan Civil Engineer in the entire western half of the country over his death, and she won’t take _Fifth Blight_ or _Mage-Templar War_ or _Hole in the Blasted Sky_ as an excuse for incompetence. She made such a fuss, the darling, that it actually became something of an international scandal,” the mage explained. He seemed cold, suddenly. “The Inquisition’s Commander, a highly-decorated former Templar, sacrifices his life saving a Fereldan village from a flood caused by poor civil engineering maintenance - _and_ to top it off he’s one of their own local boys? The _Antivans_ are still gossipping about it, of all people. All the while, the entire fucking Bannorn raising hell about kicking the Inquisition out of Caer Bronach and the Hinterlands, like we didn’t just _save the fucking world_ and half their country.” He scoffed. “Absolutely bloody ridiculous.”

Bull knew better than to interject in that vein of bitterness, letting him talk himself through the rest of the tale. It seemed like he hadn’t had time to do enough mourning yet.

“Anyway, the Orlesians started to talk _loudly_ at parties, and Viscount Tethras sent us a new Commander, as well as some rather pointed correspondence expressing sympathy for the crown’s loss of a _national hero_ who had done such good in Kirkwall, et cetera. Eventually Anora had no real choice but to finally pay a visit to Skyhold - in the appearance of the first steps of settlement negotiations with us.”

“Of course,” Bull said. “Came all the way here from Denerim, did she?”

“Apparently she knew Leliana, and of course Leliana’s paramour, the Hero of Ferelden, who had backed Anora’s claim to the throne in the first place,” Dorian explained. “So for three days Josephine _apologizes_ to the damn Queen of Ferelden because Evie absolutely refused to meet with her - the gall of her,” he grinned. “Finally Anora goes to Leliana, who introduces her to me being that I’m the _grieving widower_ ,” he paused to snort, turning to park his hip on the balcony. His hands rose, his fingertips digging into the occipital bone as he winced against an oncoming stress headache. “Only, she sort of caught me at a rough time - and she didn’t bother to tell me it was the _Queen_ so I basically told her to throw herself off the battlements!”

“You didn’t,” Bull grinned. “Only, of course you did,” he sighed and shook his head, free hand resting on the railing after closing the basket. “Also, I don’t _think_ our Leliana was involved with the Warden,” he frowned. “I heard the Hero was with some Antivan Elf.”

“Hmm, maybe that’s true here,” Dorian shrugged. “...So then Anora apologizes again - it’s hard to be mad at another widow, Queen or not,” he groused, “...though I hear she didn’t even _like_ her husband all that much - then she grants me my husband’s title from the Order, which is apparently a tradition with some precedent in Ferelden - _with_ posthumous decoration.”

“What the hell are you gonna do with a _title_?” Bull wondered.

A bewildered shrug met his gaze. “Can’t even pass it on to Mia’s kids, so, I’m damned if I know. Then she inquires if I might be interested in a marriage of convenience - I suppose she looked into me enough to know I was an _altus_ , but not enough to know I was disowned when I got married, and also that I couldn’t give her children?” He threw his hands up, baffled chuckles flowing after. “Or she _counted_ on me to say no, for her own reasons, but it still made her look good for asking? Either way, I laughed in her face and she went away, saying she’d be in touch.” His shoulders rolled again, and this time it was more uncomfortable. Bull supposed there was more to the story, but he wasn’t sharing.

“Not a bad anecdote,” he decided. “Though it’d be great if you had any that were less sad,” he reached over and rested a heavy hand on Dorian’s shoulder, letting it lie there when he felt the other man lean into it a touch.

“...Do forgive me,” he apologized lightly. “Though if you’d seen the look on Arl Teagan’s face, perhaps you’d have been laughing as much as I was.”

He told an anecdote in return for the story - something that had happened at the Forbidden Oasis that involved several pairs of missing trousers, and he _knew_ this Dorian hadn’t quite experienced it, because it started with the two of them - well, he and _his_ Dorian - having sex so loud they woke up Varric all the way across camp. The _altus_ laughed appropriately, wiping a droplet from his eye in amusement.

Dorian reciprocated with a tale about Evie and _our Bull_ , getting drunk on _maraas-lok_ until Trevelyan decided Skyhold should fly a flag with a dragon on it, because who the hell else in Thedas was going around slaughtering fucking dragons like it was a annum-day banquet? They _deserved_ that dragon flag, dammit. So they’d nicked a tablecloth from the tavern, Sera helped them draw on it, and Bull had hoisted the Inquisitor onto his horns in order to replace it because they were so drunk they’d forgotten flags could be lowered.

Bull contested the idea of any version of himself getting that drunk, but accepted that dragons were an exemplary reason, and roared with laughter at the part where Evie informed Sera that the Inquisition _demanded_ smallclothes from her as a tribute, since Bull didn’t own any. Sera provided a pair of Josephine’s, and the lady Herald proudly tied them up to soar right beneath the dragon, then spent a week and several lavish gifts apologizing to Josie.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” he apologized at last, winding down from a laugh that put color in his cheeks, pushing himself stiffly to his feet. “I cannot stay on this leg anymore. Care to sit by the fire with me, like the pair of lame old men that we are?”

“Speak for yourself,” he said, but went with him. He noticed Dorian’s footing was shaky, and preceded him down the stairs just in case. When they got to the fire, he pushed in Dorian’s chair as though he were Madame de Fer, and got a grateful smile. Dagna was already there, speaking to the Tranquil who was working on the equations, and greeted them brightly.

“Widdle, my love, just the Dwarf I wanted to see.”

“Excuse me?” Dagna screwed her face up in confusion.

“I beg your pardon,” Dorian put up a hand, palm first. “I realized as soon as I said it that you probably didn’t go by that nickname here. _Dagna,_ pet. How are those plinths working? I saw them being installed.”

“Seems like they’re working okay!” Dagna beamed. “Honestly, I haven’t worked with any _area of effect_ enchantments before,” she looked positively delighted by the idea. “Where did you ever come up with the concept?”

“Oh, give genius its due,” he said, preening immodestly, before he broke down and smiled. “From _you_ , of course!” He laughed and Dagna chuckled uncertainly. “I bought you a drink once in my world, and we ended up discussing enchantment and Tevinter’s approach to thaumaturgical theory for _hours_. Sera was asleep in your lap and Cabot kicked us all out of the bar to close up!” He chuckled and the red-haired dwarf joined a little more heartily.

“I want to talk about that too,” Dagna asked him enthusiastically, looking starry-eyed. “About the rift, and about … about _whatever this is_ and where you came from; I got to read all your initial reports,” and then she glanced back at the blank-faced Tranquil man who was watching their conversation with dull interest. “Which is what brought me up here to learn more.”

“ _Yes!_ ” Dorian crowed enthusiastically, taking a moment to push his coat off of his shoulders over the back of what used to be Varric’s chair. “I’m so glad you stopped by, saves me from hobbling down to find you. Sit down, I want to talk about getting some more accurate measurements of this rift, my dear. Now, Inquisitor Adaar won’t let me _near_ the thing, but I’ve begun to suspect that no one sees the full breadth of its aura as I myself do…”

Letting them ramble on, Bull looked over the door out of the Great Hall, and ruminated on their situation again, magic laboratory lingo floating over him absently as the two leaned across the table at one another. For some reason, it had never occurred to him before to realize that Dagna was probably the closest thing to Dorian’s intellectual match in Skyhold, at least in terms of magical theory. Defined not by experience, as most of their peers, these two could be given a concept in their field and be justifiably expected to mutate that prompt into something completely unrecognizable within hours or days. Perhaps Solas knew more in practice, when he had been here, but he was never forthcoming about his knowledge at all; perhaps Sera showed more raw, unfiltered talent with the untrained accuracy of her archery, but the Inquisition was breaking ground, and doing so meant they needed creative minds like Dagna and Dorian.

Comfortable as he was with Bull’s presence, but equally at ease with turning his attention elsewhere with complete focus, the mage slipped forward through the day on his own momentum. That little moment in which he dropped out of Dorian’s perception, in favor of his work, reminded the warrior that this was not his _Kadan_ ; not the man who was always conscious of his presence. His own Dorian had never quite outgrown that initial wariness that made him keep abreast of Bull’s location from guarded concern, even as it morphed over time to attraction, and even, he was almost sure, affection. This Dorian didn’t need to know he was watching, or even really need his care - at least, not in the same way. He ruminated on this as the Dwarven woman laughed, eyes sparkling at some joke only the magically-inclined understood.

They might have gone on for hours yet again, but apparently Dagna had another project due. They made plans to meet up later. Bull watched Dorian yawn behind his hand, and glance over at him speculatively, giving the warrior a genial smile as he turned back to his work. Once he had started to get absorbed again, Bull looked him over. He had hardly eaten anything of his own lunch, and he could easily be twenty or thirty pounds lighter than his own Dorian, or more, with wrists a little too bony, jaw a little too sharp. He might be able to count ribs if he undressed.

Out of nosiness, he picked up a few of the reports Dorian and the Tranquil had compiled, seeing a few sheets of notes Dagna had added to the pile. She had already made a few visual observations about the rift, and was speculating a range of potential effects upon the surrounding area. Helisma had also apparently begun the process of observing the rift’s effects on the flora, fauna, and inhabitants of Skyhold, and that report was included. At this time she was not recommending evacuation, but suggested that if the issue continued long enough it was a question that would need revisiting.

Like most Qunari, The Iron Bull had not made a study in magic beyond what was needed to combat it. Nowadays, however, when the most important person in his life was a mage, he had made it his business to know more about magic in general, and about Dorian in particular. He noticed, therefore, that Dorian’s focus on the problem at hand seemed to be absolute and unadulterated. “Can I ask you a question, Dorian?”

“Hmm?” the _altus_ raised an eyebrow without really looking up, blowing across a carefully-penned page as he set it aside.

“If you had your choice, would you go back?”

He raised both eyebrows this time, as he turned to look Bull’s studied neutral expression over, carefully. “You’re asking if…” he paused, frowned. “If my intentions are genuine?”

“Sorry,” he said, rubbing the edge of one nail. “Nothing personal.”

His fine dark brows knit above a frown. “This isn’t my life, Bull. That’s all there is to it. I never meant for something like this to happen,” his jaw clicked shut suddenly.

The sudden silence was as telling as the words themselves. If he didn’t know Dorian, perhaps he’d have brushed it off. “ _You_ did this?” He demanded, his voice a low growl despite himself, and his gaze caught Dorian’s stricken look and bored into his eyes.

“ _No! Venhedis_ ,” Dorian pushed back from the table a little, hissing his curse as he ran his hands back over his smoothed-back hair. The motion dislodged several fine strands to frame his face. “No, Bull,” he insisted, entreatingly. “I would _never_ have done something like this.”

“ _Intentionally?_ ” the _Tal-Vashoth_ extrapolated, his tone vicious under the bustle of the Great Hall. “You didn’t mean to, but you _are_ responsible somehow. Aren’t you,” he demanded. “For Cullen,” he added, because he didn’t really need to think about it - it was that obvious.

“I… I don’t know,” he hedged. “This is so unlike any theorem I might have been familiar with,” he said at last. “Look, Bull,” he reached one hand over, fingers alighting on his wrist. Despite himself, he flinched, and Dorian lifted his hand, slowly and carefully. “Please, let me just try to fix this. You want your - your _Kadan_ back, and I… there’s nothing for me here. At least back home I had friends,” he added softly. “I had Mia, and Rose and Bran.”

Those names didn’t really have any significance to him, but he pulled his hands off the table, leaning backward and staring at him coldly for a long moment. He tried to tell himself that Dorian wouldn’t do this for Bull, if he’d died. And he was probably right; however, the fact that he was right hit him with a sharp, bitter edge as well. “You should have just gotten the dog.”

He pushed himself up and walked away, ignoring Dorian’s last, unobtrusive call of his name from behind, the scrape of a chair. He crossed the narrow strip of the upper courtyard that had not been cordoned off, making his way toward Cabot’s out-of-the-way tent, a stack of bottles and some kegs up on sawhorses, a few chairs having been dragged out for seating. “Don’t worry, we brought your chair,” the Dwarven man told him laconically, gesturing to the big chair at the end of the bar.

“Thanks, Cabot,” he slouched into it, staring broodily at the bar, even after a pint was poured for him. Instead he was thinking about his _Kadan_. The way he sniffed in a refined laugh he didn’t want to share, humor glittering in his silver-gray eyes over the rim of a tankard, the sweet, spicy smell of him when he sat nearby and let Bull rest a hand on his warm thigh under the table. The awful, mean-spirited things he’d probably say about this other version of himself, because no one knew how to hurt Dorian more than he knew how to hurt himself.

He took a distracted drink from the tankard, and thought about the similarities between them. From what little he’d gathered of his speech and manner, and based mostly on the power of observation, he thought that the two Dorians had probably shared a remarkably similar upbringing in Tevinter. Despite how this one had mellowed, let go of some of the need to respond to every knee-jerk reaction, a lot of it was still buried in his flesh, only a few years deep.

Somehow, he’d done this, and even if he wasn’t willing to confirm, Bull knew in his gut that he had done it because he was grieving. People did stupid shit when they were in pain or scared, or angry - and Dorian didn’t have the healthiest coping mechanisms anyway. That was why re-educators existed; because sometimes you could put someone back together again if they weren’t too badly broken. It was just ironic, considering his own lover’s reaction to what Alexius had done when faced with the death of his son.

Like a thunderclap, it broke. Dorian had been hurt by what Alexius had done; he had recoiled from it, had made judgements, _life decisions_ , based on that. He just needed to be reminded about the consequences of that level of selfishness. Throwing down a coin on the makeshift bartop, he drained the pint and marched back up to the Great Hall, surprising Dorian completely when he came through the door again.

“Bull? What -”

“Come with me,” he interrupted, implacably. He ignored the mage’s questions, gesturing to the coat he had put aside, to let him know he would need it. “Come,” he repeated, and led the way down the staircase from the side doorway near Josie’s office.

“Bull, I’m - I don’t do so well with a lot of stairs, these days,” he warned, a touch of uncertainty in his voice that he wasn’t accustomed to hearing there.

The declaration made him pause, scowl, and soften a little. “If you can’t go any farther, I’ll carry you,” he responded, and began moving down the stairs more slowly. Presently, he heard the clicking tap of Dorian’s staff hitting the stair risers as well as his footsteps.

“I’m sure that had the opposite effect to what you had intended,” he replied haughtily. Gamely enough, he pressed on, and made it to the bottom of the steps, tolerating Bull’s hand beneath his elbow better than he would have expected of the mage he knew. Once he was sure that he was steady, he led the way down an infrequently-used hall, to a dimly-lit door with a bored-looking guard outside, and one across the hallway, leaning on a bare stretch of wall.

“Let us see the Magister, guys,” Bull cajoled. “He was helping with this rift stuff.” Apparently their orders didn’t preclude it, so they were allowed to enter. The closer guard knocked on the door and opened it for them at the muffled call, ushering them into the room lit starkly in a shaft of blue-white light from the small high window, and a supply of candles burning.

Surprised and cautious, Dorian looked around as they stepped in, and Bull graciously removed himself from the path of the two mages. The look on his face when he realized exactly who it was that he had been brought to visit was the sort of shock Bull had last seen on a dying man. “A… Alexius?” He rasped after a moment, his throat thick. “I never thought I’d see…”

“Dorian!” The older man’s features broke with a glimmer of relief he struggled to hide. After having been working on this rift project, who knows if he’d even been told anything about the situation. “Maker, you’re alright? But they said you’d disappeared.” The former Magister seemed puzzled, but rose to meet him, reaching out to clasp his elbows gently since his hands were clenched white-knuckled around his staff.

For his part, the younger _altus_ swayed in place, making a small noise, and he almost went down. Bull reached and grabbed him as well. “Bring him a chair? His leg,” Bull began.

Almost before he’d finished, the chair was being swept into position for the dark-skinned younger mage. Alexius was eyeing him with concern. “Pardon me for mentioning it, Dorian,” he began delicately, nose wrinkling in confusion, “...but you seem to have gone quite native.”

A wispy stutter of laughter. “Ah, well,” he rubbed the shaved back of his hair above the neck for a moment. It reminded Bull of the Commander, but he didn’t bother to remark upon it. “I’m actually not your Dorian - well, the Dorian you know,” he amended. As the former Magister took in the details, the younger man explained what they knew and what they theorized. “Do you remember Magister Faviola’s paper, the one she wrote about ten years ago or so?”

It took a moment, but the older man nodded, lips twitching with whatever emotion he didn’t wish to verbalize. “And you are saying…” Alexius glanced at The Iron Bull, who lounged in the corner as non-threateningly as he could do, despite their bad blood as ex-magister and ex- _Ben-Hassrath_. “Well, that you think this is a possible explanation?” He sounded healthily skeptical. “For instance, the past you remember… things are different for you?”

“Where I am from,” Dorian bit his lip. “You joined the Venatori, but were killed by them when you failed to take over Redcliffe. Felix disappeared at first, but…” he couldn’t say more, but his former mentor nodded.

“I… also joined the Venatori,” he admitted slowly, and Dorian looked up from his own lap as his former mentor settled down in the other chair at the small table, catty-corner from him. “My understanding is that I succeeded, somewhat - due to your interference, I displaced Inquisitor Adaar, and yourself, a year in the future. You… killed Felix -” he rushed to soothe the strangled noise. “No, my son was already gone. Just a shell. And then you killed me, and managed to return yourselves back to present, in time to stop me from furthering my mistake.” He offered a most regretful smile. “I had to let Felix go,” he whispered. “He passed away in Minrathous, after speaking up for the Inquisition there, and the Inquisitor spared my life; a courtesy to you.”

Dorian breathed out a long breath. Bull knew how sad and bitter his friend’s memory left his _Kadan_. Clearly it was the same here. He drew the back of one hand across his nose as though it itched, holding back tears. “You’d have done anything for Felix.”

Alexius glanced at Bull uneasily, then elected to ignore him. “Yes,” he admitted at last. “I… you - your counterpart, I suppose, if your theory is right - he couldn’t see me in the same light after that. An expected but… regrettable… consequence.” The bearded man had picked up a fair measure of silver gray that hadn’t been present at the start of his imprisonment, for all that he was in good health. “We rarely spoke afterward. I suppose I thought you - he - had put me behind him.”

“Perhaps,” Dorian said, looking down at his fingers curled around his staff again. “He couldn’t have understood,” he decided thoughtfully at last. “He’d never loved anything that way, or been loved like that, at the time. I don’t know that he could ever have understood.”

“...But you do,” Alexius murmured after the silence threatened to become oppressive.

“I’m in no position to judge you,” he admitted. “Maker help me, I -” he choked a little, and struggled in a deep breath. As he did, he paused and looked up at Bull. “Can I - may I spend some time here?” he asked, sounding a touch vulnerable, for once in his life. “After all, he’s already been working on what I have been slogging through.”

“I’ll send your Tranquil helper in a bit,” Bull told him, “and I’ll let Dagna know where you are as well.” He thought he felt a splinter of a smile on Dorian’s face in the dim room. The two mages had been close once, and he knew that if in his world they’d last spoken back in Tevinter, then this version Dorian never truly got to say a proper goodbye to him.

“Make some time to talk to Adaar later,” he urged Dorian, who nodded.

“Bull - thank you, for this.” Dorian’s eyes met his, with gravity, as he departed.

As he returned to walk out the door, he heard Alexius clear his throat gently, the sound of water from a pitcher following. “You must tell me everything, Dorian,” he sounded gently authoritative, almost fatherly, and he could almost sense the younger man opening up to that warmth like a flower in the sun. He informed the guards what to expect, and advised them that he’d be reporting to the Inquisitor himself on the ongoing consultation, and they nodded.

When he finally tracked down Junou, she was in the Undercroft, working on an enchantment project of her own and talking to Dagna about the rift. Bull leaned against the nearby table until she acknowledged him. He thought again how nice it was not to have to look down to meet her eyes. When he reported the news about Dorian and Alexius consulting, she merely nodded, seeming unconcerned.

“It’s probably just as well,” she commented, and flicked one hand at the Dwarven woman. “Dagna is trying out a few things to see what she can observe about the rift. It seems like there actually is a time dilation effect to the rift, as a matter of fact.”

“What?” Bull looked down at Dagna, confused.

“Normal rifts only have a few minutes between waves, when they’re naturally-occurring, right?” she observed, smiling up at the _Tal-Vashoth_ man as though nothing in the world intimidated her, much less a man double her height and width. “Well, _naturally-occurring_ may be a stretch, but you know what I mean,” she went on, and he simply cut her off with a curt nod before she could ramble. “Well, the time between waves on this rift is eighteen hours,” she pointed out. “As far as delays go, that’s _huge_.”

“But it only affects things in contact with the rift itself, right?” he frowned.

“Yes,” she nodded vigorously, “... _for now_. That rift is still expanding,” she pointed out with her words, one fingertip reflexively curling in the direction of the door. “Dorian’s dispel area just helps us keep the demons away for now. It does nothing to affect the growth of the rift. It _will_ get stronger as it expands - just like all the reports about the Breach in the future timeline.”

Growling low in his gut, Bull had to cram down another surge of anger that they had all been forced into this situation by the mage. And, he reminded himself, the women with him didn’t know that. If they did, they might not trust him to work on resolving it. Truth was, he knew Dorian _had_ to work on it. There was no one else who would be as effective at resolving it, and the other half of that truth was that he _believed_ Dorian, despite it. So he wouldn’t reveal it - yet.

“You’re going to have to let him get closer to it,” he said at last, scrubbing his face. “I know you want to be safe, and I know that his appearance here might have something to do with our Dorian’s absence, so we can’t risk losing him, I _know_ that. But…” he held out both hands in a shrug.

“I just want to act with an abundance of caution, Bull. You of all people, I think, can appreciate that,” she pointed out, arching one eyebrow at him.

“Oh, I do,” he agreed, and sighed. “But we don’t know when that rift will start affecting other things, or if others will be lost to it, or if it will become more difficult to control as we go -”

“Oh, we do know that,” Dagna replied pragmatically. “The answer is - _definitely will_.”

Bull made a silent _well there you have it_ gesture, and the _Vashoth_ woman sighed.

“ _Alright_ ,” she snapped, but mostly because of weariness. As he watched, she discreetly rubbed her thumb against the palm of her left hand tiredly. “Dagna, if there’s anything you can do to help isolate him from the rift’s effects, please try,” she went on. “Even if it’s just magic resistance. Only once Dagna does that, _then_ I will let him approach.”

“You got it, Boss,” Bull acquiesced immediately. “We’ll have the right Dorian back in no time,” he assured her, “and get that thing gone for good measure.” She managed to give him a small quirk of her dark-tinted lips as a smile. “Now go find some shenanigans with Sera,” he admonished. “You deserve to relax.”

“No can do,” she replied. “Josie wants to talk about Orlais. Apparently picking up the pieces of the Inquisition is my full-time job now,” she remarked, going back to her project. “The Bannorn seems to think we’re about to explode any minute like an unmonitored apostate.”

“Dagna, can I borrow you a minute?” Bull asked, gesturing her back up toward the stairs. The flame-haired Dwarven woman followed along with him eagerly enough, and he led her to the big table where the Tranquil was still plotting a complex-looking graph of the rift’s movements. “I know you’re being pulled every which way, but I’d like you to keep an eye on Dorian and Alexius’ work. I’m sure it’ll benefit from your help, but also…” he paused, licking his lips thoughtfully. “If you see anything that looks strange, make sure Adaar and I know about it?”

She accepted the pile of reports he handed her, to look through. She began rifling through them instantly. “Can do,” she said readily enough, if speculatively. “Anything for the Inquisition.” He told her how to get to Alexius’ quarters, and recommended she make herself available and deliver the reports as well. The Tranquil he also advised to stop by when he could to assist, and to let them know if more workspace was needed so they could authorize Alexius’ movements.

“You doing okay, The Iron Bull?” Dagna asked, sympathetically. “You miss him, huh?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, the word long and gruff. “But I sure am learning a lot about him.”

She was puzzled, but she smiled and said no more than, “He’ll be back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adding Rutherford Egg Salad as a character.
> 
> ~~Dorian + Anora = OTP~~  
>  Oh, that left a bad taste in the mouth even as a joke. Time for more turkey.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen has a few questions, and Dorian is an open book. Meanwhile, Bull misses his _Kadan_.
> 
>  _“You didn’t know that about yourself?” Dorian asked, restraining the tease in his tone, just a little, but his eyebrows rose. “Well…_ surprise, _” he whispered._  
>  I think I should go pray after this, _he decided, a little dizzily._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a long one, but far from the last.
> 
> If anyone cares about the timeline, the date of this chapter is 23 Wintermarch 9:44. Dorian arrived about 5 days ago.
> 
> Edit: Happy Dragon 4ge Day!!

Before the elite troops and trainers came up from the Valley for the day, Cullen wanted to wake himself up against the cold morning air. He dressed and scrubbed briskly, breath steaming in the cold Frostback chill falling from his ceiling. Once he was able, he slid down the ladder to his office and unbarred his doors, electing to take a walk along the battlements to get the blood pumping.

The sky was that odd pinkish shade in the east heralding the oncoming dawn, and the very thought put a few bars of the melody of the Chant of Light into his head. _...for one day soon, the dawn will come_. But he looked away and turned south, walking along the mostly abandoned battlements toward the ruined section of the southern wall.

As he turned, however, a ripple of black against the still dove-gray sky in that direction jerked his attention sharply. There, at the very end of the battlements, where the wall cornered east to eventually tumble into fallen bricks by the kitchen, someone stood upon the very crenelations, as though about to hurl themselves over the edge.

Heart in his throat, Cullen hurried forward, breaking into a jog in the early light, but as quietly as he could. The figure stood on the very corner stone of the crenelation, and the chill tugged at the hem of his coat. Long black hair tossing along with the coat, slim black leather-clad ankles braced wide on the stone, coat pushed back on both sides at the waist where thumbs hooked into his belt - it was the staff that gave it away. Puzzled, Cullen pulled up short, recognizing the mage whose fur trim and coat rippled against the breeze.

With his back to Skyhold, he looked out over the spine of the Frostbacks, where southern Orlais wandered into the Emerald Graves and uncharted wilds as far as the eye could see, swaying gently as the breeze suddenly changed directions. He seemed sure-footed despite his precarious position and his known disability. Quiet, unmoving, Cullen wondered for a moment if he was being deliberately provocative, or simply counted on remaining unobserved by the oblivious watch rotation, most of whom had no reason to come down this far.

“There are better ways to go about it,” he offered caustically as he drew closer, and he couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw the _altus_ flinch slightly.

“What did you think my aim?” He drawled after a strategic silence. “To throw myself overboard, or simply to take a satisfying piss?”

“I’d put neither past you,” he admitted, though he’d repressed his reflexive grin.

“ _Really_ , Commander,” he replied reproachfully, turning his head enough that one silver-gray eye could slide back to see him if he really wanted to. But it didn’t, though at least his voice was not lost to the landscape. “Forgive me if I find being underestimated by you to be _particularly_ offensive. I’ll not throw myself over for pining.”

“Hmm. A leak, then?” He still didn’t feel good to leave him up there, and leaned against a nearby crenelation, as though casually, but keeping light on his feet. “It is rather dangerous up there. Trust _you_ to make even a privy trip dramatic.”

At that, he did smirk, a familiar expression for him to be caught wearing. “We did once, you know. Both of us. We were… _exceptionally_ drunk,” he laughed, the sound stifled behind half-closed lips. Given that the Commander avoided alcohol these days, it was difficult to envision. “But it is a hell of a view, don’t you think?”

“I do,” he admitted, looking him over, from relaxed shoulders to feet. The mage himself was rather striking against it, if a little foreboding. “It’s why I came down here.”

“I can take off my coat, if it helps,” he offered, smirking over his shoulder.

“ _Andraste preserve me_ ,” Cullen complained, exasperated but unsurprised. “...Can you not come _down_ from there? It’s rather too easy to lose one’s footing on these slick stones in the morning.” He thought his complaint would fall on deaf ears, so he pushed himself to his feet and offered up a hand. Dorian sighed, then lowered himself to sit with utmost care, weight mostly on his right leg, and spun his knees around. Only then did he hold out his hand for help.

The Commander stepped up and realized that his seat was actually much too high for a simple hop down on an injured leg. Dorian’s fingers curled around his, but he perfunctorily moved the hand to his pauldron, then took hold of him by hands on his hips, lifting him up despite their close height, and setting him down on his feet. Taken aback, the mage steadied himself on that shoulder, and blinked up at him.

It was a strange moment. Dorian looked up with eyes wide and bright, hair in a half-knot, like before, but the back hung free, thin strands falling against his temples and brows in the breeze. He waited until he didn’t feel any tremors in the mage’s core, then released his hips. He touched the slighter man’s elbows lightly to ensure he stayed steady, stepping back decisively, though not far. He had never seen such a soft, unguarded look about him, so accustomed to seeing the polished, sharp-witted _altus-in-exile_ that it felt like he spoke now to a stranger.

Dorian coughed quietly, as though the cold had gotten to his throat, “Thank you, Commander.” Apparently that was how he had decided to try to put distance back between them - with his title. “You look as though you got a few good hours’ sleep today,” he observed, with a tone halfway between earnestness and flattery.

He wanted to twitch a little, but instead merely shrugged, hands going behind his back.

“Would you do me a favor?” He pointed to the ground, a smile flickering on his face. “Would you kindly retrieve my breakfast?” Cullen glanced down at the basket. “It’s cold enough out here that my leg is starting to stiffen up,” he shrugged apologetically.

“Not enough to stop you _climbing_ things,” he admonished, and picked up the basket.

Making a noncommittal sound, Dorian opened it up, smiled, and placed a piece of his sandwich into Cullen’s hand. He tried to protest, but the mage shied away from his attempt to hand it back, twisting the basket out of the way, and taking another half himself. “You haven’t eaten either,” he pointed out accurately. “I happen to know there’s more food around this keep someplace if I want it.” He took a bite and made a face. “Can’t promise it’s good though.”

Sighing, Cullen glanced down at the cut bread in his hand, seeing a familiar combination of white, soft cheese, a fresh Fereldan farm type, and deep red jam in it. “Is this…?”

“Absolutely,” he half-smiled around a bite. “Terrible stuff, but once you have it, you can’t possibly stop eating it, as sweet as it is,” he leaned back against the crenelation behind him, taking some weight out of the leg he stretched before him.

Cullen took a bite, remembering the sandwiches, and sometimes pastries, his mother had made for him and Mia growing up, all the way up until he left home for Templar training - a way to give something sweet to four children in a household where sugar was an expensive treat. It tasted like home, and he sighed through his nose as he chewed up his first bite. “It’s not so terrible for you,” he pointed out. “You could stand to put on a few pounds.”

“Ridiculous. I am the most handsome thing you have ever laid eyes upon, you once told me,” he retorted, sounding much more like the Dorian he knew, dressed in fur trim and eating _jam sandwiches_ as he was. “I was crafted without flaw, and am even now only slightly dinged goods,” he added.

It was probably true, Cullen thought. “Most handsome? That would be hard to prove,” he bantered back, falling back on their chess-table interactions. “Prettiest, perhaps,” he allowed, feeling his cheeks and the back of his neck get warm as he looked away. Right then, it was even true - he couldn’t think of a single woman who was prettier; could hardly even think of a woman he knew well enough to compare just then. Maybe Josephine, but it was… different.

Dorian was merely smirking when he looked back. His right hand held the basket of breakfast, and the left held his food carefully. In the dull morning light, the ring on his next-to-last finger caught the light. It didn’t particularly look like something he’d have chosen for himself, nor did Cullen see himself picking out such a thing. Taking another small nibble of his childhood comfort food, he blurted out, “Who proposed?”

Pausing, the mage deliberately pushed the last bite of his piece of sandwich into his mouth, as though to steel himself, in an _oh, we’re doing this,_ kind of way. “He did,” he replied, eyes distant over the roof of the barn. “I never thought a _real_ marriage was something I could have for myself,” he admitted, then paused, tilting his head. “Though to be fair, it could be that I put it into his head.”

Cullen felt stupid for having asked, looking back over the western battlement wall from the corner where they were currently wedged. “Dare I ask?” he ventured at last.

“I am sorry, but there’s no way to make this less inappropriate,” he glanced over, tongue working over his teeth behind his lips as he swallowed the last of his sandwich. He did seem amused, however, when he relayed the rest. “There was a - fairly typical between couples - joke about _fucking me ‘til I forgot my name_ ,” he did a loose mimic of Cullen’s own Fereldan accent, albeit with a great deal of ironic liveliness beyond what he normally allowed himself.

 _Maker_ , Cullen thought in silent amazement as he imagined himself declaring such a thing. It was almost shameful. Yet, something about the thought of having both the _desire_ and the _freedom_ to say such a thing made his blood race beneath his skin, like he’d swallowed a dozen hoofbeats deep into his chest. Eyeing the _altus_ across from him, he realized without a doubt that such a thing would not phase someone like Dorian Pavus in the slightest - it would only catch his interest. He swallowed, fingernails curling into the inner seams inside his gloves.

The mage went on, “...Of course my off-the-cuff retort was that it was okay; if he caused me to forget my name, I’d just have to borrow his. Poor thing looked like he was going to pass out,” he remarked with gentle nostalgia. “Naturally, I begged his forgiveness and we _did not discuss it again_ … at least, not ‘til the day he proposed.”

He was blushing again, and he knew it, but couldn’t stop it. “I- I see.”

“No, I’d wager you rather do not,” Dorian rebuffed, but not unkindly. “Nor do you have to. I apologize again. This all, obviously, makes you rather uncomfortable.” He peeked over. “Though you _did_ ask.”

“No, it’s fine, I…”

“Spare us both the platitudes,” he said softly. “I am the one person in Thedas right now that you are not capable of lying to.”

“I just -” he rubbed his neck. “I was wondering about the ring,” he admitted.

Dorian fanned his hand out, gazing down at it. “Yes, I don’t know that it really matched either of us all that much, despite the over-abundance of thought he put into it. It is lovely, though; custom work. I always wondered if he felt self-conscious, with me being raised in nobility,” he murmured sadly. After contemplating it a moment, he raised his eyes to the Commander’s face. “What do _you_ think?”

He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, so he took the time to think it over. Before he was even aware of it, there was another half sandwich in his hand, somehow, and Dorian was biting at the edge of his own. “I suppose he’d have taken his cues from you,” he theorized. “But if it was truly love, that’s more important than class, isn’t it?” He took a bite mechanically.

“ _I_ always thought so,” Dorian looked inside the sandwich, as though entrusting his words to it. “Though I may have been the only one in Minrathous who did.”

“If there was a doubt, he probably wouldn’t have proposed,” Cullen mused. It felt right, coming out of his mouth. “Bit of a worrier, that one,” he admitted with some chagrin.

“Don’t I know it,” he teased back. His gaze wandered far off. “... _Mea Bellator_.”

“Not sure I could get used to wearing a fancy ring like that.”

Dorian set his sandwich back into the basket, and pulled the gold chain from inside his shirt. Inside it was a golden amulet, half familiar, though this one seemed to be broken. On the chain was another ring in the same rose-gold metal, with the same three color gemstones. This one, however, was a much plainer shape; a simple band with three rectangular stones inset in alignment. The Commander reached up his forefinger and thumb to pull it closer to the light, now reflecting off of pebbly orange clouds in the sky. “Not so bad, is it?” the mage asked.

“No,” he agreed. It was still fancier than anything he’d ever worn, but much easier to overlook, and it seemed as though it would rest gently on the finger with its rounded inner contours. “You were able to save it,” he found himself saying, releasing it gently. “That must have been…” he swallowed. “Difficult.”

“One of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” he said, and his voice was leached of emotion just then, as he tucked it all back into his tunic. “I would have done anything - absolutely anything, if only - he wouldn’t take me with him,” he added, interrupting himself. “I tried to be angry with him about that. Almost managed it for a few days. But... I didn’t fall in love with only _parts_ of him. His protectiveness was part of the package,” he gave a wisp of a smile.

“Sorry again, for your loss,” he said. He couldn’t really look at first. He’d said the words enough in his life, but it was strange to be consoling his own widow - _widower_ \- in a manner of speaking.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “At least I have something new to think about. After all, now I know there’s _you_. And… you know, however many other versions of yourself, of _us_ , there might be. It makes things seem a little less… terrible,” he whispered that last.

“I’m still on the fence about that theory.”

“Well, that’s why it’s called a _theory_ ,” Dorian graciously allowed. “Just like the Maker is technically a _theory_.”

“I believe in the Maker,” he replied, staunchly. “The Chantry - well, I have questions about. But I do believe the Maker exists,” Cullen reiterated, looking at him now.

Dorian met his eyes steadily, one long-lashed blink before he looked away. “I know,” he said. “I used to believe. Now I’m not sure.” Clearing his throat, he broke the awkwardness at last. “Would you guess that fool husband of mine wanted us to be married right here in Skyhold? By _Mother Giselle_ of all people?”

“I… forgive me, but does she not feel rather…?” he gestured dubiously.

“Ah, so _you_ can see it, but that besotted thing I wed overlooked it?” he shook his head. “I put my foot right down on that one. I’ve never said _no_ so quickly in my life. No wait, once. Not counting that time Evie asked me to wear plaideweave. But I’d never said no to _him_ so quickly in my life,” he sounded so exasperated when he tossed his free hand up. “I suppose he didn’t want to make a production of things. He had to work hard to live that one down, and the Inquisitor officiated in the end.”

“Was it… strange? A mage, and an ex-Templar?” he couldn’t help himself from asking. “Only, with the world changing as it has, that whole idea is something that is becoming less… forbidden.” He shrugged, uncomfortably, but his heart was still beating a little too quickly.

“Not so strange, from my perspective,” he replied thoughtfully. “Not as stigmatized in Tevinter, you know - or, not for the same reasons. And I was a member of a _proper_ collegiate Circle in my youth, with Imperial Templars, who acted more as the Circle of Magi’s door guards than the glorified prison wardens of the Andrastian Chantry.”

Bristling at it could be a natural reaction; might have been, once. He’d since conversed with Dorian, and learned so much more of parts of the world which had been as inaccessible to him, leashed inside Circles as any mage had ever been. He had joined because he’d believed Templars to be more than murderers, rapists, abusers, and addicts, once; he was able now to acknowledge the irony that Templars had a better life under the Imperium, of all places.

“Besides another southern Templar, who else would know about the perils of lyrium?” Dorian pointed out. “Besides a mage, who else would understand the drawbacks of casting, or being connected to the Fade?” He shrugged. “It’s only weird if you _make_ it feel so.” He met Cullen’s gaze unflinchingly. “I’m hardly a wilting southern Circle bloom.”

 _Don’t I know it_ , he thought. _A hothouse orchid_ , that woman, Varric’s cousin, had called him. He’d looked it up, afterward, not recognizing the word, and found a drawing in an herbalism book. Orchids were beautiful, he’d decided. “Dorian,” he began uncertainly. “How did, um…”

“You can’t imagine it at all,” the Tevinter man guessed. His tone was reserved, but so devoid of feeling that it was impossible to imagine he was not hurt, at least a little.

“Perhaps because this Dorian is my _friend_ ,” he emphasized. “And quite otherwise occupied,” he added. “No offense is intended.”

“I know,” he said, and turned his head. He watched the knot in his throat jerk with a hard swallow above his fur trim. The Tevinter man tucked his hands beneath his arms. After a moment, he faced forward again, deliberately not looking at him once more. “If I had to guess, I’d say perhaps, the day he came into my room and watched me, ahh…”

“Please don’t be going where I think this is going,” he said, putting his hands up to his temples with the not-so-silent prayer. The dark-haired man smirked, the thin, neat line of the goatee stretching to accommodate the motion. Cullen winced at the devilish expression.

Guffawing at his reaction, Dorian stamped his feet one at a time for a little circulation. “You’re not _that_ different!” he insisted merrily. “Oh, I was late for a chess game, because getting up this early is still ridiculous, even though I’m acclimated to it now. He came to get me, and stood inside my door when I let him in, with his back to the wood like he was guarding a naughty mage. Do they do that?” he teased. “...I was dressed!” he said quickly with another laugh when he saw the look the Commander was giving him.

“I’m not even sure how much of this to believe,” he groaned, embarrassed.

“I would _never_ lie about this, especially not to you - you rather trigger the honesty habits I’ve been building up all these years, as if you didn’t know,” he observed with a sniff, looking down at his feet again. “I was shaving, actually,” he admitted.

“With… with a straight razor?” he asked. He could almost see it in his mind’s eye now; the dark-skinned mage looking into the mirror, with soap on his cheeks, the long wicked flash of the silver blade in the light as he ran it expertly over the lovely straight line of his jaw, clever fingers working it over the curve of his cheek. Cullen had always had a habit of standing perfectly still until all blades were put away - too dangerous to be distracting or clumsy with such a sharp edge at the root of a man’s tender pulse. No surprise then that the mage’s own Cullen had stood so still inside the doorway.

“What else?” he laughed. “And _yes_ , I _do_ know that about you,” his eyes twinkled.

“Wh-what do you mean?” he asked, feeling a little dizzy at the cutting look he got.

“That watching a man shave gets you hot,” he said, such inciting words, spoken in that perfect, clipped accent. Why did it suddenly occur to him that hearing filth spoken in that perfectly-schooled tenor might possibly drive a person wild? “But not as much as when it’s done to you,” he added, as though this were commonly-accepted fact.

“I - I beg your pardon,” he managed faintly, touching his own throat like he could feel the phantom touch of the brush, the sharp rasp of the blade on his own skin. Where before his mouth had seemed far too wet, now it seemed unaccountably dry.

“You didn’t know that about yourself?” Dorian asked, restraining the tease in his tone, just a little, but his eyebrows rose. “Well… _surprise_ ,” he whispered.

 _I think I should go pray after this,_ he decided, a little dizzily.

“Guess what else?” the mage might have been enjoying himself a little too much.

“Great gaping _Void_ Dorian, there cannot possibly be _more_ ,” he bit off.

“Only a small public service announcement,” he leaned closer, cupping one hand around his mouth as he whispered, “... the more lyrium your body expels, the greater your libido will resurface. Especially once the, ah… fires get stoked, so to speak. Prepare yourself.”

“I… did not need to entertain those thoughts at this point, thank you,” he managed dryly. Dry as the Western Approach. He swallowed hard against it.

“You will one day,” he said, straightening up again. “You’re too good a man to spend the rest of your life alone, you know. You should be open to loving someone someday. It does suit your complexion marvelously, love does,” he said, and the words were warm, but not boiling like before. “It’ll frighten you less if you know what to expect as you reach that point.”

Perhaps he should be grateful for the guidance. There might be a day when he would look back on this conversation in wistful thanks, embarrassing as it was now. “I hope you know how to follow your own advice,” he managed at last. “I’ve…” he cleared his throat, but it wasn’t like the conversation was going to get less uncomfortable until it was over. “I’ve never seen this side of you, but it’s… flattering on you, as well.” He’d never expected to see a Dorian who offered such boundless positivity and love, even grief-stricken and self-deprecating as it was. Honestly it was… charming; endearing in ways that his normal flirtations fell short of. It was the rawness, perhaps; that inner fire glimmering like light from beneath a heavy closed door.

“The things you say,” he murmured, the first touch of warm light painting bronze on his skin, in his eyes. For some reason, he found he simply wanted to keep looking. His heart did something in his chest that almost knocked his lungs out of rhythm when Dorian smiled at him.

“So, shaving?” he asked weakly, trying to get back on track, though the grounds were still treacherous underfoot.

Dorian’s shoulders jerked in a silent chuckle. “And then he watched me put on my moisturizer and makeup,” he went on. “I don’t think he realized that I was able to see him staring at me in my mirror. He was trying so hard to talk about... Venatori tactics, Skyhold gossip, Tevinter Circles - anything he could think of to not just be staring at me. But, I suppose I liked it… well enough to keep thinking of him,” he added, biting his lip as he looked up at the sky again.

Turning his head, he gasped suddenly. “Oh, _Cullen_ , look!” He pointed up over the roof of the Great Hall, past the Inquisitor’s tower. Rising out of the eastern sky, the sun seemed to be ringed with a bright, half-realized circlet of gold. Dorian staggered forward a few stiff steps closer to the inside edge of the battlement walk, and Cullen found himself following. To either side of the morning sun, a brilliant flare of light, like tiny, smaller suns, flashed against the brightening sky. The play of light between them and around the arc caused the light of the actual sun to form a faint cross-like shape in the sky, almost connecting the flares.

It was something he had seen only a few times in his early childhood, and almost never since taking up his training to become a Templar. His mother used to refer to it as a _Maker’s Blessing_ , but he had never had cause to refer to it at all, merely staring upward at the brilliant display until it eventually faded out of existence. This morning, his already fast-beating heart was now racing for an entirely different reason, and he felt his lips slacken in awed reverence.

“Would you look at those _parhelia?_ ” Dorian exclaimed breathlessly, a faint plume of steam lifting with his exhale. “Beautiful!” he reached out unconsciously, his hand curling into the crook of the Commander’s elbow. “You almost never see them in Tevinter - most don’t even know they exist, that far north,” he whispered.

“You mean the sundogs?” the Fereldan man asked, perplexed at the unfamiliar word.

“Now, you listen to me, Cullen Rutherford,” Dorian huffed a sigh, as though at his very wit’s end, but still playfully. “I have long since come to accept you and your countrymen’s fascination with your beloved mabari and all things canine. However, I absolutely _refuse_ to refer to such a stunning meteorological phenomenon by a name so crass as _sun. Dog._ ”

It was so ridiculous, and put-upon, that he found himself grinning despite how frankly irritating his tone was. Low under his breath, he laughed, and Dorian finally looked away from the sky, chasing his amusement with a flash of teeth and a small shiver against the wind. Fingers gripping the inside of his elbow curled tightly to avoid shaking, and he curved his arm, reflexively protecting that touch. This must have been what his Cullen had felt; this urge to grasp, to hold; this wakening of a long-dormant desire to _treasure_.

“Perhaps your day will be blessed,” Dorian said to him, his other arm crossing over his chest, his right hand resting gently on the outside of the Commander’s elbow, though his eyes were only on the heavens.

“You saw it first,” he whispered, wondering why neither of them could speak up.

“So what?” he felt the silent chuckle vibrate the man’s chest against the back of his bicep. “I’m not even supposed to _be_ here.”

“Do you suppose things like this cross the… divide?” he asked, vaguely, nodding up.

“If I ever see one again, I shall wonder precisely that question.”

 _And if you are looking at it with me,_ must remain unsaid.

For a while, neither of them moved, though on his weakened left leg, Dorian had to lean into Cullen to help support his weight. It was surprisingly comfortable, and warmer where they pressed side to side. As the sun rose, the parhelia lights took on a tinge of rainbow as the light refracted in the changing atmosphere. At last, the wind of the Frostbacks swept the sky clean, and the phenomenon faded. A small groan of physical discomfort, mingled with disappointment, pulled itself from the mage’s throat, and he raised his free hand.

“Goodness, my face is now made of ice,” he remarked, rubbing at first one cheek, and then the other. “Ferelden will be the death of me yet.”

“You should take a bath,” Cullen recommended. “It’s not typically full this early.”

“I…” the hint of longing in the _altus’_ eyes flickered in and then shuttered. “I would dearly love a bath, but…”

He’d literally never heard of Dorian refusing a bath. “What’s the matter?” he asked, anticipating some unexpected trouble, or stigma.

“Only… I haven’t anything to change into,” he admitted, biting his lip, with a bit of proud stiffness. “Bull made it clear that he would have no objection to me using your Dorian’s belongings. However…” he paused, mouth half open as he tried to frame the next syllable. His breath no longer steamed in the cold air. “I cannot wear his clothing,” he said at last.

“Oh?” he asked gently, sensing the complexity, even as, somehow, he thought it would in fact seem strange for this version of Dorian to wear his trademark buckles and bare shoulder.

“I… cannot,” he said again. “I’m not that man anymore. He… he _died_ , in a way,” he went on, with a great stiff reserve. “I promised myself I wouldn’t be that _altus_ again; I didn’t want it. Not for all the gold and wine in the world. I only want… _fuck_.” Tears were falling down his face before he could even finalize his thought. Lightning-quick, his wrist dashed them away, and he turned his face.

When he tried to take his hand back, it was too entwined with Cullen’s arm to do so quickly. The Commander didn’t release the hand, but looked him over again, from his sensible high boots - good in the mud and snow - to the coat that was long enough to keep him warm, yet still buttoned at the waist when he wanted to raise the hemline out of the muck, past the fur that warmed his neck and broke the wind from his face. Lastly, he looked over the mage’s countenance - hair cut and trimmed differently than he had done when he was younger; less outlandish, though it still showed a flash of his personality.

“You made a choice,” he realized, and Dorian turned back to look at him, but his wet-rimmed eyes lingered around chest level for a long time before he could will himself to look up at his face. “You chose to be a… a Rutherford,” he felt his eyebrow rise, betraying a fraction of the panicked surprise that still lived in him, resurfacing intermittently at the sound of his name from those lips; at the word _husband_. Dorian watched his mouth, and then looked back to his eyes, though he seemed weary and did not respond. “So, you should... do that, then.”

“Even though here… you and I aren’t-”

He shook his head. “I can… see that it means something to you,” he said, and his heart thudded heavily the same way it looked like Dorian’s did just then. “The fact that it does… I’m honored, I guess you could call it,” he admitted. “If it comforts you, use it.”

He was still the proud Tevinter, but not as he used to be. Rather than denying it and pushing him away, filling the space with scandalous noise as he would have done, it just meant that he said nothing and averted his eyes. But his fingers gripped tightly through his sleeve.

“I hardly use my casual clothing. You may borrow some and wash your own,” he offered at last, with a quiet sigh. “If it will fit.” It seemed rather forward, but no one would care or notice, he thought. Plus the look he received was full of affectionate gratitude, and he couldn’t imagine saying no to that. “Come with me,” he tilted his head back toward his tower, and they walked together, because they were already hooked together at the elbow, and it felt so natural.

Dorian’s pace was slow, the empty basket in his hand, but he was leaning a bit on Cullen until he got some limberness back into his leg. His face was a mask hiding his discomfort, though he seemed willing to wait, perched upon the corner of his desk, while Cullen climbed the ladder. Once he got there, however, and opened his trunk, he froze, looking through the contents. Dorian was close to his height, but had never been his match in build, and was now decidedly underweight. He rifled through his clothing options, not sure what to go for.

Apparently he took too long; the ladder creaked quietly as the Tevinter man struggled upward. “Stay down,” he admonished, but a dark-haired head popped up even as he said so.

“I can, and have, climbed this ladder in my sleep,” he retorted with some amusement. “We lived up here, you know,” he swung himself up onto the edge of the opening, sitting a moment to catch his breath before lifting up and turning to approach. As he did, he gazed around the room with a startled eye. “However, I… have suddenly remembered why you were _not_ permitted decorating privileges in any space we cohabitated.”

Cullen snorted despite himself, pulling the trunk away from the foot of the bed, gesturing Dorian to sit comfortably. “I take it you whipped the place into shape, then.”

“Naturally,” he agreed, easing himself down onto the edge of the bed with a stifled groan. “My husband, delightful thing that he was, was responsible only for the portion of decorating that involved hauling heavy things up stairs and ladders for me.”

“Why am I not surprised?” He pulled out a stack of common tunics, handing them over nervously. “Will any of these fit?” The Commander was a bit embarrassed to sound so shy.

“You should not be surprised at all,” Dorian agreed. “Though it did help to hammer home a few lessons on the value of _delegation_ , I dare say.” He rubbed his thumb over the fabric with the skeletal remains of a smile. “This should do,” he seemed to instinctively know which of the three had the slimmest cut. He plucked at the loosest one before handing it back. “Though I rather miss stealing that one to sleep in.”

 _Just that alone, I’ll bet_ , something insidious told him, and though he blushed, he merely took back the clothing, and looked for something in the way of trousers. A pair of dark slacks he wore while working out seemed to be the best potential fit, and Dorian shook them loose, holding them up with a nod of approval, re-folding them.

“Do you need more?” he asked.

“Maker only knows,” he replied, straightening his prizes into a neat bundle in his lap. “I’d hoped to resolve this quickly, but…” he grimaced toward the window, thinking obviously of the rift. “It’s such a huge fuck-up,” he admitted, his voice hushed down almost below a whisper.

“Saying it’s a _fuck-up_ implies it was intentional.” Cullen watched Dorian’s reaction from the corner of his eye as he tucked the rest of his clothing back into the trunk. Or rather, he watched the mage’s non-reaction. He turned and stared at him, long and hard. As he watched, he could almost see the color change of Dorian’s face as a blush set in. “You know something about this,” he concluded.

“Yes,” he said, after a moment, every bit as softly as he had when they’d watched the sky together. “I’m sorry - and this outcome was accidental - but... I was involved.” He looked only at the far wall, the light bending an odd color into the iris of his eye in profile.

Crouched still on the floor, the Fereldan man eased himself back onto his rear, sitting down with his back to the trunk as he looked up. “You were trying to do something you shouldn’t have, and it created this rift,” he intuited. Dorian didn’t say anything at first, just turning to look down at him. “Junou said it felt like _Time magic_ ,” he twisted his mouth, confused and anxious over the thought of strange, rampant magic in Skyhold. “Oh, _Dorian_ ,” he whispered. “You didn’t.”

What was hinted at in Mia’s letter came back to haunt him, and the former _altus’_ eyes closed, heavy and hard. “I told you... I would do anything.”

“Did you - did you think he would have approved?” Cullen asked, his appalled demand muted by sympathy, incredulity, but underlaid with pure objection. He’d only ever seen Dorian act very scrupulously with his magic. To think of him behaving so cavalierly about something so dangerous… “I can assure you -”

“I know,” he said simply, interrupting the admonishment, far more calmly than he might have expected. “He wouldn’t have. Mia said the same. But I didn’t need to hear that to know. I ...did it anyway,” he admitted, swallowing. “My gravestone in the Fade said _Temptation_ ,” he went on, and Cullen remembered some sorrowful drinking from a couple members of the inner circle about that particular tale. “I couldn’t live with myself not to try, do you not understand? I swore _forever_ ,” he spread the fingers of his left hand again. “Knowing that I could have done something and I _just didn’t_ …” he shook his head, biting into his lower lip.

Grief did things to people. He knew that without saying. Still, Dorian should have known better. He just expected, perhaps unreasonably, that the mage would have a better handle on his emotions on something this vital. Heart sinking, Cullen sighed deeply. “Someone should have been watching you,” he said softly, scrubbing one hand over his face.

“Evie tried,” the mage shrugged. “She’s trying to keep the world from falling apart now that she’s saved it. Mia tried, but she was too far away. Varric was gone, Bull is long dead, Solas disappeared, Vivienne is back to politics - and even if none of that was true, what did it matter?” He asked. “I didn’t really matter to them.”

“They’re your friends,” he pointed out helplessly.

“But not my keepers. Friendship only goes so far,” he pointed out, swallowing, his voice thickening. “Case in point: Alexius. I was more than his friend - I was practically a member of his family. If things hadn’t ended so badly, people would have spoken our names together for the rest of our lives. When it came down to his _mourning_ , it didn’t make a damn bit of difference.” He rose to his feet, with effort. “I don’t take it personally anymore, because now I know what it feels like.” He raised the fabric he’d rolled up in his hand. “Thank you for the clothing. I’ll return it soon.”

He slid down the ladder with an effortless grace that belied his injury, and after a shuffle, Cullen heard the tap of his staff as he saw himself out to the battlements. When the door shut, he raised his heels to catch at the planks of the floor, elbows digging into his upraised knees. He pressed his palms to his eyes. _It’s not me,_ he reminded himself. _He doesn’t love_ me, _he loves some other Cullen Rutherford. This isn’t about_ me.

Unfortunately, that other version of himself was no longer there to stay his hand. They must have been together for years, he realized; the transformation Dorian had gone through was not an overnight process. Also, he knew himself, and he wasn’t the type to throw himself into love - _was it love? It had to be love; they were married, for Maker’s sake_ \- carelessly. In fact, if anything, he overanalyzed things too much, tempered by fear and caution.

He wondered what it would be like to have an actual conversation with his counterpart. _What were you thinking?_ would be the first thing he’d imagined he might ask if he could. He remembered Cole’s words; _“I’ll return soon, my love,” but he came home on his shield._ He had at least something of a similar path, including Kinloch and Kirkwall before the Inquisition. _You were a trained professional. What happened? You finally had something to sodding_ live _for_.

Despondently, the mage telling him his husband refused to take him along with, like he was a _wilting southern Circle flower_. Now it was Dorian’s part to come to terms with the fact that his husband had prioritized protecting him over trusting him; over facing the danger together. Taking a breath, Cullen carefully tried to divorce himself from mistakes that he could have easily made, but didn’t actually perpetrate himself. All he could do was learn from it; from his own… death.

His head fell backward against the arched lid of the trunk. He thought of the warmth Dorian wanted to give him, but held himself back from showing. Those sudden tears that had broken from him when he tried to explain that he wanted only what he had lost, _who_ he’d lost.

It was just such a fucking waste. Here he was, and he didn’t even have the strength to find what that other version of Cullen Rutherford had found. Yet he was still living, and he should have never had to come face-to-face with his own widower. With a Maker so unfair, it was little wonder the mage’s faith was shaken. It was disheartening; sickening - such a fucking _waste_.

But the morning was getting late, and the taste of jam sandwiches in his mouth was turning his stomach. He rinsed it down with water and slid down the ladder, finding the kitchen basket with Dorian’s mostly uneaten second sandwich half left behind on the corner of his desk. _And I ate more of his breakfast than he did_ , he shook his head and strapped on his sword.

For the greater part of the morning, he spent time teaching advanced combat and observing his trainers and lieutenants. Most of them would take what they knew to the troops still in the valley below, remaining vigilant until the Inquisition’s fate was sealed. Some would venture to Caer Bronach, which was operating undermanned, or Griffon Wing Keep in the Western Approach. He was able to put the stifling feelings he’d been left behind with away, breathing in cold mountain air, watching the men and women train.

 _What will I even do after this?_ He wondered, and not for the first time, but perhaps for the first time so pointedly that it stopped his thoughts. Watching the sky, he saw black birds flying in and out above the rotunda. He didn’t even really have a plan, he realized. He didn’t want to be a Templar; he’d only lived in service. He wanted to taste peace for once, he thought, and had even considered going to be with his family in South Reach, though he had no pretty northern groom to take to them as the other Cullen had. Just a broken ruin of a man trying to re-learn how to sleep through the night.

It was a few hours into the day when he found himself half covered in a horned shadow. It was no longer Kirkwall, so he did not leap to his sword at the sight of a man with horns, but he did blink a few times and take in a deep breath to center himself from his distraction. “Morning, Bull,” he said at last, not really looking back at him just yet.

“Hey Cullen,” the massive man greeted him laconically. “Seemed pretty far off, there.”

“Sorry,” he replied reflexively, shaking his head. “A bit.”

“Lots going on lately,” he acknowledged, leaning back against the wall where Cullen had stationed himself to watch the combatants. “You were out walking with Dorian this morning?”

He wasn’t sure what to say. _The sky was amazing,_ or _I thought he might kill himself_ , or even, _I halfway wish I hadn’t_ all circled in the back of his throat. “By happenstance, yes,” he allowed, and swallowed. “Bull,” he began, and paused. Sometimes, the former Qunari already knew what you were going to say. If he did this time, he didn’t jump in. “I feel the need to apologize to you, about Dorian.”

A thoughtful sound emerged. “Why?” he asked, arms crossed over his bare chest when Cullen finally turned to face him. His expression was relaxed, though that meant little; his eye was half-narrowed, though that could mean anything.

“He’s - well, if this theory is to be believed… he’s not our Dorian, but… our Dorian, is really _your Dorian_ ,” he began, and scowled at himself, feeling off-track already. “This Dorian, I suppose, was at one time decidedly more, er… _my…_ ” he shut his mouth, feeling his cheeks heat up. “It’s complicated, and it feels rather messy.”

After a long analysis of his words and intent, Bull finally quirked a bit of a smile. “Yeah,” he agreed. “And I mean, why not? Blood magic exists. Time magic exists. Corypheus existed, impossible shitbag that he was. Junou walked in the Fade, for crying out loud. At this point, what can we really rule out?” He shrugged those massive shoulders. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he added. “If we accept the premise, then he just made different life choices, that’s all. I feel worse that _my_ Dorian isn’t here, than about the fact that yours _is_.”

It was a bit comforting to hear. He didn’t want to feel as though he was treading in another man’s yard - not that the mage could easily be relegated to the realm of _property_ or anything, but… He rubbed a hand hard over his face. _Complicated_. “I…” he didn’t know he was going to speak until the words started to come out. “Talking to him…” he wasn’t sure where he was going with that, and shook his head.

“Different, huh?” he agreed. “He sure does like you,” he remarked, about as nonchalantly as one could expect. Cullen turned to look at his face again, like he would learn anything there. “Aw, don’t look at me that way, I didn’t say anything wrong.” His eye narrowed when he realized the Fereldan man was flushed a little. “Cullen, I’m not kidding. He’s not my lover. I don’t care if you pass time with him, long as it doesn’t make life hard for my _Kadan_ , _when_ he comes back.”

Cullen choked a little, cleared his throat. “I-I would never,” he began, but he quite lost his tongue when it came time to declare what, exactly, he would _never_. Dorian was his friend, he reminded himself. Perhaps he would feel uncomfortable to think that the Commander had… unfairly benefitted from the situation.

“Apparently, somewhere out there, you _would_ ,” the mercenary pointed out, unconcerned. “He was actually gonna get you a _dog_ for your anniversary,” he added, almost gleefully, and Cullen’s heart went soft and flopped over. “Dorian with a dog,” he snorted.

 _A dog_ , he thought, with a helpless warmth in his chest as he blinked rapidly.

Before he could come undone over something as simple as the thought of owning _a dog_ with a person he loved, however, Bull slapped him on the back of his armor. He appreciated the sudden clarion call to the present. “Come on, let’s spar. Work out some of this weirdness.”

That appealed very much to his practical side, and he nodded briskly, a perfunctory smile emerging as they stepped away from the wall to grab some practice weapons. They were working on shield maneuvers today, so there weren’t any two-handers readily available, but Bull adapted to the sword and shield with no trouble. The two squared off, attracting just enough attention to have an adequate space cleared around them. Most of the Inquisition veterans were still going at their own training, though a few on the edges did stop to watch, as well as a few interested passersby.

Saluting each other, both fell into stance on the balls of their feet, testing each other out with feints and stabs of the sword, shields blocking cleverly with each answering thrust. He threw himself at the _Tal-Vashoth_ to test out his footing, and didn’t get very far, shields scraping before he bounced back, a feral grin answering from one face to another.

They attracted more attention as they expended more effort, slashing low, blocking high, whipping out of the path of a blade, and soon enough Cullen found himself sweating inside his armor. The two circled, a shadow crossing the lower courtyard as a cloud passed over the sun. “Not bad, Commander,” Bull was saying, grinning at him.

Quietly, Cullen tried to weigh the bloodthirsty look on his face as they feinted again. He knew Bull was a Reaver, and he didn’t suspect that he would say such encouraging things in their last conversation if he didn’t mean them. The only thing he worried about was that there was something uncomfortable but still unspoken left between them. He didn’t find any such shadow in Bull’s eager expression, however, and felt himself relax a little as he responded to a heavy over-handed slash downward.

The brutal chop had the benefit of a seven-foot _Tal-Vashoth’_ s full weight behind it, and though he caught it well on his shield, Cullen went down to a knee in the dirt, shield angled upward. Bull showed his teeth as he lined up for another, more powerful strike, laughing deeply as he did. Cullen held his shield steady, but prepared to turn it at the moment of contact to throw his balance off.

Just as Bull gave a battle roar and went to bring down his weapon, however, Cullen sensed the tingle of magic in the air as a prickle across the back of his hands and neck. With all the abruptness of an explosion, the jagged ice wall which sprung up between the two combatants surprised a shout from his throat, among the cries of others. For his part, Bull barely managed to pull his hit in time to avoid impaling himself. His deflected blow knocked out a part of the spiked glacial shards, and the Commander struggled to his feet amidst gasps of fear.

When he was on his feet, he and Bull both glanced at one another in surprise, and then turned toward the inner keep, in the direction the ice wall had emerged from. Shaking as he held extended the wicked, bare blade at the top of his staff, Dorian stared at the two of them in vacant shock. As he watched, the mage planted the end of his staff, and clutched it with both hands. His chest and shoulders were heaving, but he didn’t seem to be getting enough air - his mouth was slowly going slack, and his eyes glazed, his weight listing slowly toward his staff.

“Dorian?” Bull asked, and the two men moved toward him as his mouth fell open, knees giving way as he crumpled toward the dirt. One of the nearby soldiers stopped and reached out to try to catch him, but the former _altus_ was already going down.

Throwing away his weapon and shield, Cullen jogged over to him, waving the soldier away. Dorian was now sitting fully upon the ground, knees together and heels apart, one hand wrapped around his throat as he made tiny attempts to gasp in a full breath. “Dorian, it’s alright,” Cullen assured him, getting only a shake of the head in return. He reached out to him, caught his hand gently to pull it away, and fished around one finger beneath the looser collar of the tunic he’d lent earlier today until he found the silverite chain.

Drawing the long chain free of his clothing, he took the coin and put it into Dorian’s hand, squeezing his fingers around it. The staff toppled into the dirt with a hollow rattle and _tang_ when the blade struck. Shaking, the former _altus_ grasped the coin, starting badly when Bull knelt down next to the Commander’s side. His eyes danced frantically over Bull’s face, and he seemed - meek? Embarrassed? Nervous? Whatever it was, it flashed through his eyes in just an instant, replaced by panic.

Leaning forward slowly, he curled over his own lap, but his muscles were tight as harp strings, and he still wasn’t breathing properly. Bull glanced at Cullen, then rose, circling around behind him. Looking over Dorian’s narrow, black-clad back, he reached out and dug his two thumbs into the muscle of the mage’s lower back, quite low on either side of his spine, a frown of concentration on his face. Nothing happened, and he did it again.

Gasping in a sudden shot of pain like a rescued drowning victim, Dorian jerked upward, drawing in a ragged, desperate breath that crackled in the mountain breeze, and a few of the soldiers who had stopped to watch the ordeal let out sighs, or mutters, as though some unnamed tension had passed. The mage’s reflexive movement had nearly banged his head into Cullen’s chin, but he jerked back a little, catching the man’s arms as they struggled wildly against his own chest and throat.

“That’s good, Dorian,” he was saying. “Breathe in for me, real deep, as long as you can,” and he made a production of making loud, long inhales and exhales. The mage’s eyes were clearer, marginally, but he was still affected, one hand white-knuckled around his late husband’s coin, the other grabbing into a fold of Cullen’s mantle, eyes searching his face desperately.

“I think he’s gonna -”

Proving Bull’s aborted warning prophetic, Dorian swooned again. Both men went to catch him, though his head came to rest against the front of the Commander’s breastplate. After a moment, he dared to reach up and pick up the dark-skinned face pressed against him, looking for signs of respiration. “I think he’s breathing again,” Cullen supplied after a tense moment, though the sound of his breath was unpleasantly raspy.

“Good,” Bull muttered, low enough to avoid prying ears. “Whatever causes these panic attacks, it’s new,” he added. “ _Our_ Dorian doesn’t get them.”

What could have caused it? He wondered. The Tevinter man had changed clothing, and his hair was still damp, obviously having come back from his bath. His leg was limber enough, likely from the hot bathwater, that it had been able to fold up easily beneath him. They should get him off the ground soon. When he was walking by the lower courtyard, he must have seen them sparring, and…

... _Throw yourself between that Ogre and Cullen in the Arbor Wilds_. The words from the other Mia’s letter flashed into his head abruptly. Blanching, Cullen almost bit his tongue trying to contain a curse. To pass by the courtyard and find him on his knees with Bull attacking him, surrounded by combat - it was a wonder he’d restrained himself to a mere ice barricade, and nothing more deadly. “Let’s get him off the ground,” Cullen snapped. “The cold is bad for his leg.”

Bull glanced at him shrewdly, but lumbered himself up from the ground, reaching to scoop the unconscious mage up into a bridal carry with a mere grunt of effort. He seemed a little surprised by how easy it was, as a matter of fact. “Let’s put him to bed,” he said after a moment, glancing around at the soldiers watching them, who were starting to see that things were under control. They drifted away back into their assigned pairs. Cullen gave a nod to one of his captains to continue for the moment - as well as she could with an ice wall dividing the courtyard - and followed The Iron Bull up the battlement stairs.

To his surprise, however, at the top of the stairs, Bull turned left along the battlements, not right. “Bull, what are you -” he realized that the mercenary meant to take Dorian to _Cullen’s_ room, rather than his own, if his implacably remote expression was any judge. “Should we not be taking him to your room, where all his things are?”

“Those are my _Kadan’s_ things, and he feels that,” Bull replied grimly. “He’s wearing your clothes, Cullen, and it’s _you_ he’d rather see safe when he wakes up.” The bad thing was that he was probably right, but still... “I remember that stuff he told the healer about the Ogre. Seeing me coming down on you like that probably hit him right where he lived.”

He wanted to protest, but all he could do was flush and let his hands fidget. “My bed is up the ladder,” he pointed out. “It’s not very practical.”

“Yeah, you’ll have to manage that bit on your own, but I’m sure you can handle it. I probably can’t even _fit_ up in your room,” he smothered a laugh.

“Should we not get Josephine to issue him a room?” He opined, tentatively.

The tall gray _Tal-Vashoth_ favored him with a narrow searching look. “It’s not like you have to _do_ anything, Cullen,” he pointed out, as though the Commander was trying to skimp on some important duty. “Just let him sleep. ...Maybe it’s a little unkind to him,” he went on, uneasily, “but it should be comforting to him to wake where it smells like you.”

His face couldn’t possibly get any more red, especially given the Wintermarch breeze cutting at his cheeks. “I don’t know what to say to him, really,” he admitted softly. “I thought… I thought I was just _embarrassed_. But that’s not exactly what it is.”

“Don’t say anything, then,” Bull advised him. “I learned that a long time ago. Just let him talk. He’s good at talking; you’re good at not talking. He couldn’t have married you and been uncomfortable with that.”

“He didn’t _marry me_ ,” he protested, face flaming again. “And - and obviously his husband was _different_ from me. I couldn’t see myself -” he tried to articulate some kind of words, but ended up gesturing in futility.

“He’ll tell you what he wants, and if you listen real close, you can probably read between the lines and figure out what he _needs_. Just pay attention to whatever he’s carefully not saying. Like… like an interrogation,” the taller man told him, with a cheerfully helpful tone that made the Commander sort of want to strangle him, like interrogations were great common ground between the two of them. Which perhaps they would have been, at one time.

“You know he did this,” Cullen said, and Bull stopped, turning.

As a matter of fact, he couldn’t say for sure that Bull knew. Only, he wouldn’t really put much past the former _Ben-Hassrath_ in terms of figuring people out. It seemed that he had not overestimated him this time either. “Yeah, I do," he gritted out, in a voice better reserved for blood mages. "I’m not happy about it. At the end of the day,” he concluded, “I don’t give a damn what happens to him, so long as he fixes it. That’s all I care about. I want my _Kadan_ back," Bull explained, his voice thick and rumbling dangerously.

Cullen knew what it looked like when a man forced himself to be stoic, and he saw it now as the _Tal-Vashoth_ looked first at the mage in his arms, and then into the distance over the battlements."I can’t make him more important than our Dorian; in the end, he’ll survive his grief or he won’t.” he swallowed hard, “...so long as I get my Dorian back it doesn’t matter. He owes me that much. I think he knows that.” His jaw turned away from the horizon, eye refocusing on the Commander, honed to a killing edge. "If he forgets, I'll make sure he doesn't forget again."

Recoiling, Cullen looked from him to the unconscious man in his arms. What little of the idealistic young Templar remained in him wanted to pull the mage out of his hands. He was too pale, a yellow waxiness creeping up beneath his cinnamon skin. “Give him to me,” he reached out, giving in to the urge. “And get the door,” he added.

Somehow they got it to where Dorian was half draped over Cullen’s shoulder. He was heavy, but not as heavy as he should have been. Bull opened the north door of his office and let him inside. “Have someone send his staff up,” Cullen told him fleetingly, grabbing the ladder and hoisting them both up one-armed, with determination. “And food that will keep ‘til he wakes.”

“You got it, Commander,” he tossed off a mock salute and closed the door.

How he even got Dorian up from the ladder to a standing position, then across to the bed, he could hardly recollect later. He did have to go down to his knees to ease the former _altus_ onto his bed, and let him down gently. Looking him over curiously, he reached up and plucked the tie from his hair, letting it loose so that he could sleep more comfortably, leaving it on the side table. His hair was actually somewhat unexpected; it was thick-stranded, dense, but smooth, and once released, attempted to turn into a rebellious wave it couldn’t quite manage to achieve.

His rest would hardly be comfortable with the coat and all… he unbuckled it, eased it off of his arms, and slid his boots off. He was surprised, yet not, to find that the mage had surprisingly elegant bare feet; well-shaped and fairly soft, not unlike his fingers. Oh, but he’d freeze like that, the Fereldan man realized as he glanced up at the hole in the ceiling. _I have suddenly remembered why you were not permitted decorating privileges in any space we cohabitated._ He pulled down the bedcovers, and tucked his feet in. He piled the spare blankets he used on the coldest nights, and then spread the fur-trimmed coat overtop.

He lifted Dorian’s head onto a pillow, and watched him quietly for a time. He breathed more normally now, but his face looked so tired and gaunt. Thoughtfully, he perched on the edge of the bed. He didn’t eat enough, and perhaps he hadn’t been sleeping either. It was possibly not a great idea to leave him alone. His fingers caught the silver coin necklace, and tucked it into the blankets. The gold pendant was still out, and he touched it with curious fingertips.

Broken snakes at the top; a pattern that had once resembled a stylized peacock feather below, cruelly marred by the strikes of what could only be a hot chisel. The damage to the Tevinter-style amulet had been intentional. And there on the same gold chain was the innocent-looking gemstone band he had been shown earlier. He touched it again gently, turning it around to catch the light.

Finely-wrought and without a hint of imperfection, the Commander mused that it might well be of Dwarven make. He wondered why he - his counterpart - had not chosen yellow gold, like Dorian used to wear. Apparently, however, he liked this quite fine; the embroidery on his coat matched the rosy hue of the metal, and the shade gave a warmth to the skin of his left hand that gold might have denied, as he was today.

Giving in to temptation, he lifted the ring, still run through with the thin gold chain, and fitted it onto his own left ring finger. Even with the chain, it was a near perfect fit. He had been right that the rounded contours inside gave it a soft and comfortable fit, and for some reason, he could imagine wearing such a thing, glancing at it while he did his reports, as his counterpart had doubtless done. Perhaps he’d smiled as he went back to work.

After a moment, however, the finger started to feel rather… _warm_. Frowning, Cullen eyed the ring, and saw a faint glow in the stones; a barely-there tingle made the fine hair on the back of his hand stand on end, but it settled very quickly, a soothing sensation, like touching a hot rock in your pocket on a chill autumn morning. He glanced down at Dorian’s hand, and saw a faint glow on his ring as well. A soft sigh wrung itself out of the man’s nose, a tension easing in his face, almost imperceptibly.

 _An enchantment,_ he realized. Their rings were enchanted to respond to one another. What, exactly, that connection told them, he couldn’t be certain. Perhaps it was nothing complex, as rings were so small. Nothing more than _I am here_ or _I am well_ , unless he missed his guess. Still, just that small, too-sweet reassurance would clearly mean the world to a couple. Regretting that he had pried at all, he reluctantly dragged the ring from his finger, and tucked the amulet, and the mage’s hands, beneath the covers.

His fingers had never felt so cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I appreciate everyone's patience - there are some things that Dorian talks about publicly, and some things he shares with Bull and Cullen separately. I hope it isn't too much of a drag.
> 
> (Don't be too mad at Bull, guys, he just wants his boo back.)
> 
> Thanks for riding along so far!
> 
> (Should I release the Rutherford Family Cookbook next? XD)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bull has some apologizing to do, and Dorian explains that the rift won't stay under control indefinitely.

Regretting what he’d said to Cullen the instant he saw the recoil in the Commander’s eyes, Bull hadn’t fought the man’s urge to take the Tevinter mage away from him. In a way, letting the Commander be the one to comfort Dorian, when he inevitably woke, felt like something of a punishment to himself that he fully accepted.

After all, it wasn’t as though he felt _nothing_ about this other version of his lover. As a matter of fact, this alternate Dorian had been rather warm to him from the beginning, even if not so warm as he was to the Fereldan man who led their troops. He resolved that he would apologize later, to both of them if he could. They deserved a better reaction from him.

For the time being, he went down to the makeshift tavern and found Krem, who was leaning back in one of the salvaged chairs and eyeing the rift narrowly as he sipped at his beer. “Y’know, Krem, as weird as it seems for us to end up here at Skyhold, in this Inquisition business…” he lowered himself to his own chair with a grunt, “...apparently it’s meant to be.”

“Yeah, I spoke with Pavus,” he replied distractedly. “Or rather, _Rutherford_. We had a beer the other night.” He shook his head a little.

“Did you?” Bull asked conversationally, holding a finger up to Cabot when the Dwarf glanced his way. “And how was that?”

“Weird, Chief. It was _weird_. Like you didn’t know.” He squinted against the sunlight. “It’s like either someone did a really half-assed impersonation, or you actually have two people mixed up in one body.”

“Sure did seem happy to see you,” he went on. “Guess we’re all dead where he’s from.”

“Yeah,” Krem braced his fingers wide around the beer in his hands. “We had a whole conversation in Tevene, which was nice.” With Krem, on rare occasion, Dorian spoke low Tevene. As Krem rebuffed, _“‘Cause I ain’t fancy like ‘at.”_ Bull hummed understanding. Only the _altus_ kids could afford to learn ancient Tevene; most of the population spoke Trade and a modern dialect that had once been known as _vulgar_ or low Tevene. “Said he regretted that we hadn’t gotten on better in the day, and how Skyhold hadn’t been the same without us. Then he let me ask him questions, and… shit, I don’t know,” Krem shrugged, raising the drink again. “Dunno if I believe it all.”

“You believe _that?_ ” Bull asked, thrusting his chin up at the golden-green crystallization of the rift, patrolled on the ground by infantry, watched by archers on the battlements, and surveyed from above by the Inquisitor herself.

“Dunno,” he said again, shrugging once more. “But I tell ya, that wasn’t no _altus_ I was talking to,” he shook his head. “For one thing, he beat me in a whiskey bomb race.”

“Get the fuck out,” Bull told him. “You’ve disgraced the Chargers.”

Krem grinned and play-punched his upper arm. They settled down to their drinks for a bit, and he realized that he hadn’t just sat and had a drink with his lieutenant in too long. “Got some new job proposals coming in,” the smaller man ventured tentatively, his voice gruff. “I’ll vet ‘em and get ‘em out to you.”

“I’m not going anywhere ‘til this shit is sorted, but…” he thumped his drink against his second’s. “If it’s something you can handle, I trust you to take the boys out, Krem. You’re man enough, and it’s gonna have to happen someday.”

Krem watched his face closely, making a noncommittal hum. After another drink, he hesitantly asked, “So, you still sleeping with _this_ Dorian?”

“Oh, for- _Koslun’s balls_ , Krem,” he groaned.

“Hey, I didn’t say _tuppin’_ ,” the man threw up one hand defensively. “Just worried ‘bout you, Chief,” he paused. “He does say he’s gonna get your asshole ‘Vint back, right?”

“So he says.” He found his good eye straying over his shoulder toward the Commander’s tower. “Says there’s nothing for him here.”

His second was no _Ben-Hassrath_ , but he was getting shrewder to the things Bull had been involved in over time. “You’re worried that’s a lie,” he stated. “‘Cause o’ the Commander.”

“A little,” he admitted. “But… nah,” he drawled, “not really. It just…” Why not tell the truth? It _bothered_ him. Krem would understand, maybe wouldn’t even judge him.

“It’s weird though, right? Sera says it’s weird.”

“Has Sera even talked to him?”

Another expressive shrug. “He was married to the Commander, wherever he’s from; that shit doesn’t just go away, right?” he tilted his head. “I’d probably be a little jealous.”

“So what,” Bull shrugged, scowling. “What is marriage, anyway.”

Krem screwed his eyes up. “Nothing really, ‘cept… it’s commitment, isn’t it? _Conscious_ commitment. Like, a promise in front of the Maker an’ all. Can’t get to that altar without overcoming a few obstacles, and fighting off a few instincts to flee.” He drained the rest of his drink, and set it down gently on the board serving as the bar. “ _Your_ ‘Vint is real good about makin’ lots of words happen without really _sayin’_ anything. Hell, so’re you,” he snorted.

The former Qunari’s stomach soured as he realized the truth in what Krem was saying. It was like going into a battle with a sneak attack versus a declaration of war. The difference was, the mage could make that promise to Cullen, in that other life. But here in this one, he felt like both of them were always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Every time he’d realized that in the past, he’d just hauled Dorian off to bed, and neither one of them had to think about much of anything but pleasure and sex for a while; a little bit of physical closeness that stood in for the emotional intimacy that neither of them were good at. They both enjoyed it, and neither of them liked to think too much about the pain they would inevitably face in the future. Even if they didn’t abandon one another, there would doubtless be long months turning into years in which they could see and touch one another for only a handful of days, if even that.

Bull resented this new Dorian for taking some of what time they had away, but the truth was, he and his _Kadan_ were perfectly adequate at squandering that time all by themselves. Dorian Rutherford had made the most of that time, and was still fated for it to be cut short. If the pain in his own chest was anything to judge by, then maybe that anxious grasp for more days, even more _minutes_ , was only a natural reaction.

As if he didn’t feel shitty already.

“Thanks Krem,” he muttered. His lieutenant’s eyes widened, but he knew better than to pry. He just nodded uncertainly.

“Catch you ‘round, Chief.”

It wasn’t until that evening that the mage appeared, wrapped up in his coat and leaning heavily on his staff as he descended from the battlements. Bull hadn’t seen Cullen around, so he didn’t really know what was going on with them, but he did see that the former _altus_ couldn’t even make it all the way down the stairs before having to rest. Slowly, he lowered himself to the steps, left leg stretched out. Thinking he was alone and unobserved for the moment, he let his head droop to the side, temple pressed against the wall of the stairwell, and grabbed his coin pendant in one hand, shoulders heaving slowly.

When he sensed that getting up again wasn’t going to be so easy for the mage, the _Tal-Vashoth_ rose from the makeshift bar and wandered over to him. “Come on,” he said, making the man’s eyes shoot open in the dimming light. “I’ll help you up. Where ya headed?”

“Oh, Bull,” he replied, his voice too exhausted to sound pretentious. “You startled me.” he got that pained look on his face that his _Kadan_ got on the battlefield, in the rarest of cases, when he was injured and low on mana, and just couldn’t force himself to move anymore. “Just… just _up_ ,” he said at last, not making a fuss about it like the mercenary was accustomed to hearing.

“Sorry for being so pissed at you,” he grumbled, still a touch reluctantly, as he reached down and hauled the mage to his feet with one hand. “Also I made a shitty remark to Cullen too, so I’ll apologize for that.”

“Oh? Do tell?” he asked idly.

“I, uh… I’m not proud of it.”

“Well, you said it once, might as well say it one more time.” He took a breath, stretching his neck muscles out uneasily. “That’s what happens to former _Hissrad_ who don’t need to lie anymore, you see,” he pointed out, a little breathless as he set his staff into the dirt.

“Basically implied I don’t give a shit what happens to you as long as I get my _Kadan_ back.” Bull saw his eyes widen, though not so much in surprise at the words, he thought, as the fact that he was actually being honest. “In fact, it was meaner’n that. Shouldn’t have said it. Pretty much that if this shit kills you, you should wait until you’ve fixed things at least.”

“Oh, don’t sugar-coat it,” the mage’s lips curled and a particularly nasty little smirk, one that he knew hearkened back to his Minrathous days, bloomed darkly. This was his first time seeing it on this version of Dorian, but far from the first time he’d witnessed the expression. Even as it manifested, however, he practically _watched_ the man take a deep breath, grit his teeth, and let it go. “Ah, _kaffas_ , Bull. You’re mad. I get it.” He forced himself to hobble forward, away from the conversation, but not very fast. He fell into step, and was able to keep up easily. “I _am_ sorry,” the former _altus_ offered stiffly. “I know it’s not right that you and others have been affected by this, but it was genuinely not my intention.”

“Okay,” he acknowledged, breathing carefully, checking the position of his hands and shoulders carefully. “I’m gonna accept that, but I hope you can accept where I’m comin’ from - with what I said,” he spread his hands out carefully as he walked, keeping them from clenching back into anxious fists like they wanted to do. “I guess I pushed some of my own feelings off onto you, about - other things, involving my relationship with him.”

“It’s a deal,” he grunted, when the ground shifted under his staff and he nearly stumbled. Bull caught his elbow. He nodded a wordless thanks, and angled their course toward the rift.

“So,” he cleared his throat, looking for safer ground. “I’m an idiot about magic, but… will you tell me what you were _trying_ to do?”

Dorian blinked up at him in the fading light. It was orange and pink in the sky, and the upper courtyard was illuminated with a glimmer of gold accented with Fade green from the anomaly they approached. “Oh, I was trying to create an artificial rift.”

Pretty much what it looked like had happened, then - but at least somewhat intentional. Jaw dropping, he veritably goggled at the mage for a moment. “The _fuck_ were you trying to do that for? That sounds _stupid_.”

“Better than trying to open up a natural, uncontrolled Fade rift,” he pointed out. “If I’d been successful, then I would have been able to maintain control over the development and manifestation of the rift, and its eventual closure, with a simple key.” He reached up and pressed one palm across his chest. “Then I could use it for a single Time magic spell, and close it once completed.”

“...Sounds fucking arrogant,” he pointed out.

“Experimentation and discovery is often very arrogant,” Dorian replied frostily.

“So you agree then.”

“I’m not in a position to _dis_ agree.” He gestured up a hand at the rift, a bit rudely. “Obviously, it didn’t work.”

“So why’d you go through, then?” Bull asked, skeptically. “I mean, you could tell it didn’t exactly, uh, _work_ , right?” he pressed dubiously.

“Of course I can tell,” he sighed, sounding pinched. “It is _my_ magic that created it.” That made sense; their Dorian would certainly have an affinity for his own counterpart’s magic. No wonder his _Kadan_ had seen it more vividly than the other mages. The Tevinter man balanced on his right foot, staff planted and crooked in his left elbow, and rubbed his hands together. “I didn’t actually plan to go through. I was… taken through, you might say. By an…” he lifted one hand, and sighed once more. “By an irresistible force.”

“Did it look like a gold energy ribbon?” He squinted up at the rift speculatively.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” he replied, surprised. “Your Dorian, as well?”

“Yup.” The warrior crossed his arms, and tilted his head. “Dagna told the Inquisitor that there’s a time dilation effect on the rift.”

“Really?” he brightened, sounding eager. “I suspected that was at play, but they wouldn’t let me get close enough.”

“Yeah, you’re not really supposed to be this close now,” Bull pointed out, scratching the base of one horn. “But if Adaar asks, you didn’t know that.”

“Know what?” he inquired placidly.

“Exactly.”

Dorian waved sharply. “Enough about that; tell me about this time dilation!” he nudged the taller man eagerly with his right elbow, the two of them facing the rift, standing halfway between the foot of the stairs to the Great Hall and the rift.

“Do I look like a mage?” he demanded. “All I know is, my _Kadan_ disappeared, and eighteen hours later, here you are. But the demon manifestations come a lot more often than that,” he pointed out. “Or they did ‘til they put those plinths in.”

“Yes, well. Demons come from the Fade,” Dorian pointed out distractedly. “ _I_ didn’t come from the Fade, for all that I could be considered a dream come true.”

He wanted to give him shit about the joke, but at the same time, the mockery of ego was enough of a reminder of his lover to be almost reassuring. “So where _did_ you come from?”

“Well, from here,” the mage’s lips pursed thoughtfully. “Only… not here. I don’t know,” he sounded impatient. “It could be beyond the Fade. It could be… it could be that the Fade is sort of a nexus of different worlds, which might partially contribute to its seeming randomness. Or not,” he contradicted himself easily. “It could be that all worlds exist within the same space, even, but separated by some means with which we are unfamiliar, something like the Veil, but more impenetrable. If so, then had we only the means to peel back the curtain, perhaps we could even watch other realities unfold,” he lamented. “I’m afraid Time magic is my speciality, my friend. I know little else about this.”

“Mhm,” he muttered noncommittally. Sounded like shit people had no business fucking with, to Bull. “Maybe you should be telling this stuff to another mage, then,” he grumbled.

“Few and far between are the mages who would even think to ask,” Dorian replied expressively, and he seemed to have regained some of his breath gradually. “Vivienne, for instance, could certainly be counted upon for an extreme “ _kill it with fire”_ approach. Damn Loyalists - you know, I _swore_ I would _never_ get involved with southern Circle politics,” he shook his head vigorously. “It is almost enough to make one wish Solas were still present, questionable in both manners and fashion as he perpetually was.”

Without waiting for a response from Bull, Dorian grasped his staff and hobbled closer to the rift. Lifting the staff horizontally before his chest, he stood motionless before the rift for a time. The patrols who were keeping alert to the possibility of demons breaking through the rift gradually paused to keep a too-close eye on him. Bull did his best to exude an air of confidence, as though they were both completely authorized to be present.

After a time, he brought his staff down and cradled it in his elbow again, that hand resting on his chest and the other palm seeking upward, as Junou did when she accessed the power of the Anchor. The artificial rift overhead hummed, glowing a little brighter, and then slowly dimmed, almost pulsing in waves. A few voices murmuring could be heard; after a moment, Dorian reached for his staff again with his right hand, and grasped it just below the focus, in the leather grip where his late friend’s eyepatch was bound as a reminder.

Swinging the still-bare blade in an arc around his feet, he pushed his left hand and leg forward, weight on his right knee, his lips moving silently in the dim light. A warm breeze began, and then with a sudden thrust, the staff blade stabbed upward, a clearish-green blast emanating from it twice. There was an immense cracking noise, as of dropped stemware, and suddenly two mirroring outcrops of the rift’s crystalline structure cracked and crumbled off, dropping toward the ground.

The descent was too slow, and even as they fell, a glittering trail disintegrated into the wind. By the time they hit the ground, there was almost nothing left of them. The remaining structure of the rift was still symmetrically balanced, and still continued to glow as though nothing had occurred. Dorian sank back onto his feet in a more balanced manner, with a deep sigh, planting his staff into the dirt. People came running.

“What did you do?” Bull demanded. “There’s gonna be questions.”

“All I did was delay it a little,” he said, sounding tired. “I severed the crystalized manifestations of the magic with a force attack,” he explained, “...and I had to do it on both sides because it has to stay in balance or the crystal matrix will warp, and lose control. They’ll grow back eventually, if left unattended, but for now we should be able to keep it quiescent.”

Then he swayed as if to pass out again, and The Iron Bull had had quite enough of his fainting for a while, so he grabbed the former _altus_ by the arm and held him upright. The mage extricated himself firmly, however, and approached the glittering shards of the rift that had managed to survive, like the last melt of the winter icicles, and reached down toward the shards.

“You sure you wanna do that?” Bull prompted, but Dorian just shot him a familiar scathing glance, and a small spell came to life in his hands. Crouching down, he isolated the glittering shards from the outside world.

“Get Dagna to come grab a sample,” Dorian muttered. “Get a jar with a static preservation spell, she should have some.” When he paused, waiting for more instructions, the mage added impatiently. “And hurry up, or you’ll be carrying me around for the next day while my leg locks up!”

Rather than run himself, he grabbed one of the soldiers nearby. They were paid to run better than a half-crippled ex-Qunari merc. “She’ll be here in a minute,” Bull advised Dorian, and they waited more or less in silence until the bubbly red-haired woman could skip down the steps from the Great Hall, arms full of jars and gear.

“You’re the _best,_ Dorian!” Dagna praised, using a pair of long-handled insulated tongs to transfer as much of the remains as she possibly could into the jars. Dorian let down his spell barrier and let the _Tal-Vashoth_ drag him to his feet. He’d seen Adaar waiting patiently, hands behind her back as she watched, nodding politely at the Dwarven woman’s greeting as she hurried up the stairs with her new prizes.

Bull knew she’d taken a lot of time and effort to cultivate this straight-backed pose, wanting to appear serene and confident while standing beside Lady Montilyet. Raised as a _Vashoth_ and having spent most of her life in the company of mercs like his Chargers, he knew that when she relaxed, she could be a handful for most of the smaller races. For now, however, she contented herself with fixing a rather steely-eyed look on the Tevinter man.

Dorian tried to look at least a little sorry, but much like his counterpart, he was terrible at it. With a snort and a long, lazy blink, Junou Adaar sighed, and her shoulders moved just a little. “Once a Pavus, always a Pavus.”

“How dare you,” he managed, with just a touch of the asperity of his younger days. Fortunately for him, she found it more humorous than anything. Particularly when he shifted his weight and staggered, and Bull had to hold him up.

“I see that you’ll be at it no matter what I say,” she jerked her chin toward the rift. “Did you learn anything?”

“Little new,” he admitted, “...but hopefully our lovely Widdle will have presents for us soon,” he flickered a ringed hand in the direction Dagna had toddled off to.

“What in the _hell_ is a _Widdle?_ ” The Inquisitor scrunched up her nose.

“Blame Sera,” Dorian shook his head as though to clear it, standing upright. “Once she has it in your head, you can’t call her anything else.”

“Best not to ask, probably,” Bull opined.

“You’re looking a bit pitchy, Dorian,” she noted with faint disapproval.

“The rift draws on me,” he admitted, and the _Tal-Vashoth_ tensed.

“I suppose it would, since it’s your spell,” she observed.

The former _altus_ gaped at her. “You knew, then,” he asked, the question fading into a plain statement, and he had the grace to look slightly abashed at her indulgent expression.

“I’ve been fighting beside you for almost three years,” she pointed out. “Well, your counterpart at least - he was even present when we took down Corypheus. How could I not recognize your overly-flashy spellwork?” she teased.

“Did he?” the mage smiled wistfully. “Evie left me behind. Said she was concerned I couldn’t keep up and would reopen my wounds,” he sounded a little pained, but his voice was gaining strength back. “If it were anyone but her, I’d’ve been angry.” His smile fell, glancing around as one of the soldiers on patrol passed closer than he was comfortable with. “Well, there you have it, Inquisitor Adaar.” The mage moved as though to rake his fingers through his hair, but it was tightly bound back. “The truth is out. I was selfish, and I fucked up.”

She tilted her head, but as cool and collected as her eyes were, there was also a slight remove in them. “I’m not sure I’m qualified to judge you on this one, Dorian,” she said. “But yes, what you did was incredibly selfish, and dangerous. If Cullen had done it - or any of your friends, for that matter - you wouldn’t have supported them. Still, I’m not sure anyone could have stopped you, honestly, short of making you Tranquil. If you’re anything like _our_ Dorian, that is.”

His face went stiff, but Bull could tell he was a little ashamed, being called out by someone he barely knew, yet who knew him better than almost anyone here. Something about that moment really clicked the connection for him. “I… suppose you are right to admonish me,” he accepted, with a stiff sort of grace. “Although I know your friendship is not with me, but with your own Dorian… I still…” he swallowed. “Thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome,” she replied graciously, a touch of warmth kicking up the corner of her mouth just then. “It’s late. Make sure you eat something,” she scolded him, and then looked seriously at Bull as well. He nodded. She walked past them as they headed to the stairs.

“Here,” he said as they reached the bottom, offering his arm. “Lean on me.”

“You’ve a bad leg too, you old bastard,” he grumbled affectionately.

“Is this what I have to look forward to?” he chuckled. “When my _Kadan_ gets ancient and cranky one day?”

“I’d say run while you still can,” he grunted as they hobbled up together, “...but realistically, one should at least be one’s _own_ champion in these matters. So, whatever you’re imagining, life with your _Kadan_ is _clearly_ going to be better.” They turned at the landing and he chanced a glance up. “So, it’s a forever thing, then?”

Bull found himself swallowing, and not looking down at Dorian’s upturned gaze. Which only sharpened his interest, and at last he had to look down. “I don’t know,” he admitted quietly.

They paused inside the door, and Dorian tied the thick leather sleeve around the naked blade of his staff to avoid injuring any of the nobles or guests inside the door. “You don’t want it to be?” he asked, his voice and face inscrutable as he gave his undivided attention to his task.

Just then, a pair of young guests bumped into Dorian’s shoulder, nearly knocking him off his feet. Bull couldn’t quite follow them - they seemed to be chattering away nervously in Antivan - but they stopped and one of them reached out to him apologetically. “ _Estoy bien, gracias_ ,” he replied, waving them off.

Their eyes lit up to realize that he spoke Antivan, and they started peppering him with questions. He pointed out the door, giving them directions to the tavern, and laughed. “ _Si, si claro que la cerveza es Fereldan… pero no entiendo por que lo bebiste. ¡Que lastima!_ ” He laughed with them. One of the two tried to ask his name, thanking him self-consciously in Trade, and he smiled, spreading his hand on his chest. “ _¡Tu_ Trade _está bien! Me llamo_ Dorian Rutherford, _pero por favor, deberías busca embajadora de la Inquisición Señora_ Josephine Montilyet _si necesitas ayuda_.” More thanks clearly followed, with everyone involved smiling and nodding eagerly. “ _Disfruta tu visita_.”

“I didn’t know you spoke Antivan,” he noted. He wondered if his lover did as well.

“You mean you don’t?” Dorian asked, surprised. “We did share a border.” They made their way down to the dining hall together. “So, you didn’t want it to be forever,” he pressed, “...or _he_ didn’t? _Doesn’t_ ,” he corrected himself.

“I don’t know what he wants,” he admitted, pausing on the stairs. He forced himself to keep moving and not hold up the line. Dorian came with him, but instead of getting food, he picked the most secluded table and grabbed them a pair of seats, the mage tucked in close in case others needed use of the spare chairs. “You happy?”

“Not at all,” he replied, with gusto. “I’m quite a catch, you know; you shouldn’t take me for granted,” and he turned his noble profile up haughtily. Bull took a moment to appreciate it. It was the same nose, the same lips - the throat he’d kissed and bitten more times than he could count. “That’s not what it was, though, was it?” he concluded, looking back down at him thoughtfully. “Either he was too proud, or you were too cowardly. Which was it?” he challenged.

“...That’s kinda freaky,” he muttered, rubbing his fingertips together.

“Both, then?” Dorian asked kindly. “Or was it the opposite? Or both adjectives to both subjects?” When the older man grunted noncommittally, Dorian just smiled at him, a little fondly. “He must already be pretty comfortable with you. Pet names?”

He didn’t want to say it. “ _Amatus_ ,” he admitted gruffly.

“Did he tell you what it meant?”

“No,” he admitted, ducking his horns a little. “But I found out.”

“Idiot,” the mage murmured benignly. “So what’s it to be, then? Shall he throw it all away and remain at your side, roaming the countryside looking for things to profit off of the death of?”

Balefully, he glared. “Have you even met yourself?”

Chuckling, he shook his head. “Let me guess - he feels this tortured responsibility to go back and put his myriad graces and gifts to use trying to further the aims of the people of Tevinter? Nevermind that it’s basically the social and emotional equivalent of swallowing cyanide and then stepping into the ocean with a lead weight.” He supposed his face was enough to answer that question. “What about you, then? If you could, would you give up all that gives your life meaning, for his sake?”

“He’d never ask,” he replied, lowering his voice enough that even the man next to him had trouble understanding.

“You _need_ him to ask? Or do you just want him to notice - to care?” He didn’t acknowledge the mild accusation at all. “Do you truly think he doesn’t? Do you think he doesn’t think about it, likely daily?” he sighed. “I know what I was like.” He tapped one set of fingers restlessly on the table for a moment. “If I had the choice to go back to being him, in exchange for never having known love, I wouldn’t do it,” he admitted. “Perhaps there’s a blessing in that he can love you, and still be who he was born to be.”

Looking his distant expression over, he hummed thoughtfully. “Do you miss it?”

“At times.” He pursed his lips. “Perhaps it’s also a blessing that I don’t feel obligated to be him, anymore. I feel more free, in a lot of ways, than my younger self ever did.”

“I noticed you introduced yourself as _Dorian Rutherford_ ,” Bull pointed out. It made him feel strange to think of it, like it somehow became more real that his Dorian could belong to someone else, just as this one did. “That’s what you and Cole meant, when you said you _used to be_ Dorian Pavus?” He got only an enigmatic smile in return, though there was an embarrassed air to it, like he hadn’t meant to do it and hadn’t realized. “It’s got a nice ring to it,” he muttered reluctantly.

“You think?” He sounded pleased, though there was a hollowness in it. “Oh, how he used to smile when he heard it,” he remarked. “ _This_ Cullen rather just looks like he needs a vomit bin,” he remarked, with his familiar air fond amusement, self-deprecation, and the despair of quality Orlesian ham.

“Maybe. He strikes me as the type to get motion sick in the face of high-velocity course corrections,” Bull remarked. The former _altus_ gave him a rather good laugh. “Still, I think he’s come to terms with the fact that it’s more than just a prank pretty quickly. He seems… respectful of what you went through, at least.”

“That’s because he has a good heart, and far too much natural empathy,” he laced his fingers together. “But we were talking about you. Can you live with your _Kadan_ sequestered away in maritime Tevinter for most of the rest of his adult life?”

“Guess I don’t have a choice.”

“Relationships can sour that way,” he pointed out. “You shouldn’t settle. It won’t do any of you any favors.” It was a strange feeling, to be getting this calm advice in this sonorous voice, with that familiar crisp accent. And so coolly, unperturbed. “Of course, you’re strong enough to live through it. Not everyone is. It’s just a matter of figuring out what he’s worth to you.” He turned and looked at him. Dorian’s eyes were wide, bright, and a level of uncalculating that he was not accustomed to. “And if you know what you want, you have to be bold enough to tell him. He’s going either way, isn’t he?” He tilted his head. “It’s in your best interest to not leave things up in the air.”

He asked himself, and not for the first time, if he really _could_ live this way, barely ever seeing the man who had come to ground him, complement him; the person who made him feel like there was a _reason_ he’d come out the other side of everything he’d gone through in Seheron and beyond. As he ever did, he thought about the Chargers, and how he didn’t want to abandon them, and how bitter things would get if he had Dorian around, just to have to leave him behind at home to go off and pursue contracts.

“Hey,” he said. “I betcha Cullen hasn’t eaten anything.” He watched the mage’s face slacken slightly in surprise, before color crept up from his collar. “You should go take him his dinner. Take yours with.” He licked his lips thoughtfully, but didn’t say anything. “You’d rather sleep in his bed while you’re here, right?” he asked, keeping his voice as casual as he could.

“I’m not sure he’d feel that way,” Dorian murmured, lashes lowering. His blush was only a faint one. “Would that not bother you?”

“Why?” He asked, levelling his good eye at the mage, tilting his head. “You’d rather sleep with me?” He had seen a few curious looks come from the Tevinter man - and sure, there was a basic physical attraction there between them. After all, he and his _Kadan_ had had to find something to lay a foundation on. But the way he reacted to Cullen - it was a man reacting to his _mate_. Something primal and possessive, framed by something tender and yet respectful - a combination he had carried over from his marriage, despite himself.

“You’d be surprised, about how Cullen feels,” he went on, remembering the sharp flashes of jealousy in the Commander, of defensiveness, and that surge of fear he had inadvertently displayed when he’d thrust his arms forward earlier, demanding to take the unconscious mage from Bull’s embrace. “What’s the harm?” he asked quietly, and Dorian shook his head as though to argue with him, but couldn’t meet him in the eye. “If it’s what you want,” he added thoughtfully. “Maybe you don’t, I don’t know. But you’re comfortable with him - more than me.”

Rather than letting the former _altus_ stew on it, he grabbed his hand and hauled him to his feet. Together, they put together a set of covered plates, stacked and then tied with string into a single bundle that Dorian could manage one-handed. He handed Dorian a kettle full of water for his other hand, then he shooed the mage on his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading through this week's chapter. It was a bit dry, but please be advised that next week, the first three rows are considered to be in the Splash Zone and _will get wet._
> 
> Translator's notes:  
> Dorian's rather pedestrian conversation with the Antivan nobles who bumped into him:
> 
> _"Estoy bien, gracias."_ = "I'm fine, thanks."
> 
> _"Si, si claro que la cerveza es Fereldan… pero no entiendo por que lo bebiste. ¡Que lastima!"_ = "Yes, of course the beer is Fereldan... but I have no idea why you would want to drink it. What a pity/shame!" (Throw that shade, Dorian; we're onto you.)
> 
> _"¡Tu_ Trade _está bien! Me llamo_ Dorian Rutherford, _pero por favor, deberías busca embajadora de la Inquisición Señora_ Josephine Montilyet _si necesitas ayuda."_ = "Your Trade is good! My name is Dorian Rutherford, but please, look for Inquisition ambassador Lady Josephine Montilyet if you need assistance."
> 
> _"Disfruta tu visita!"_ = "Enjoy your visit!"
> 
> If you skipped this note, you didn't miss out on anything really.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I know so little about you,” he found himself saying quietly, the room still in the late-afternoon light, his breath barely disturbing the small motes of dust dancing in the shafts of sunlight from the window behind him._
> 
> _“Well, we’ve only been friends for three years, by your reckoning.” Whether the inflection was supposed to go on the ‘only’ or the ‘friends’ part, he could not be sure. The dry sarcasm was familiar, along with the curling half-smile. “Anyway, I suppose you never will.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy early Christmas. Santa brought you smut this year! :D Bit of a long chapter; hopefully Cullrianites will consider it worth the wait.
> 
> The date is 25 Wintermarch, 9:44. If anyone's keeping track.
> 
> Thanks to the Herald's Rest for the help brainstorming the Inner Circle's terrible, awful ideas for wedding presents. <3
> 
> Edit: Forgot to note food mentions in the early part of this chapter. Be safe y'all!

It should have been surprising when Dorian turned up just after sunset with dinner for what was now the third day in a row, but at this point, it was almost a relief to be distracted from his own looping thoughts, chasing their own tails in the back of his head like exceptionally stupid dogs. Cullen felt as though he’d been tied up in uneven knots for the past several days. The mage had showed up with dinner and simply presumed his welcome, and something about the way he came in and quietly owned the space was both unobtrusive and utterly disarming.

When Dorian had woken in his bed the day before yesterday, they’d looked at one another without really looking, and the mage had rubbed his thumb anxiously against the inside of his wedding ring, and bit the inside of his cheek to remain stoic. His limbs had still been shaky when he’d pushed himself up out of the covers and thanked him, but they hadn’t spoken of anything of import that day, parting awkwardly. He’d inquired about the Tevinter man’s well-being, earning a surprised smile and a murmur of gratitude, though his eyes lowered despite his firm chin, and his fingertips pressed at his collar unobtrusively. Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about what he’d seen or how he’d felt. Cullen had let him go, unable to find the words to encourage him to stay.

As far as he’d been informed in the War Room since then, Dagna and the collective mages’ efforts at unravelling the rift continued, though it was common knowledge among the advisors what Dorian had done, and why. He’d come across Josephine, Leliana, and Dorian in the hallway whispering to one another in Orlesian, but all talk had stopped as he passed, and they had all eyed him. Leliana had given him a friendly nod and a slight smile. Josephine had nodded, and then turned her still-concerned gaze back to the former _altus_ , who looked from the Commander down to his hands and whispered to the women, “ _Je ne suis pas stupide, bien sûr, je sais que ce n’est pas mon mari.”_ He turned to Leliana, who was now watching the Fereldan man more than the Tevinter, but his eyes rested on Josephine. “ _Je ne serais jamais venu ici exprès, vous savez.”_

Like a great many Fereldans, Cullen had never had interest or desire to learn Orlesian, until such time as he wished to eavesdrop. An unworthy impulse.

When Dorian brought him dinner tonight, he didn’t bother to argue. He’d made it perfectly clear the other evening that it mattered to him that Cullen ate, and that it was as convenient to eat with him as not. He cleared off some space on his desk, pushing aside some supplies and shuffling his papers into the drawer, musing that it was a comfortable enough ritual even though it was only the habit of a few days. The kettle sat on a loose flooring tile the Commander had nonchalantly plunked down on the desk the first night, earning the former noble’s scoffing grin, so as not to burn the wood when Dorian reached out and traced a small fire glyph on the side of the metal container.

Circle mages had not been shy of using controlled magic in the right circumstances within their circle, but having Templars staring them down as they did often rattled them to the point where they would refrain, lest they be accused of being unable to control themselves. Particularly in Kirkwall, the consequences of such failure were high. Yet he knew that this mage had made something of a home with an ex-Templar, and it simply didn’t occur to Dorian to be shy or reticent about his gifts in the Commander’s presence. He mused silently over the idea of returning home to a hearthfire built and surrounded by a lover’s domestic magic, and found it far less frightening than he once would have, under his prior life’s dogmatic leash.

While the kettle was heating under his watchful eye, the dark-skinned man tossed his coat and his overtunic onto the chair, left in just the crimson Highever Weave shirt beneath. He rolled his sleeves back with practiced motions, and the sight of his bare forearms and hands was almost disconcerting after seeing him bundled against the cold for the past several days. It was less inflammatory than his counterpart’s half-bare shoulder and chest in the Tevinter-style clothing, but the contrast of color and style was startling. He looked sensational in red, and it was rather distracting that he was perhaps the best-smelling thing for miles.

He asked after Cullen’s day and his well-being, but said little else. When he lost steam about half-way through his dinner, Dorian topped off the herbal tea that had brewed while they were laying out plates, scooting his chair closer to the far side of the desk, but at an angle that allowed his leg to stretch. “I’m sorry to be a nag, my dear,” he spoke up suddenly, apologetic, “...but you really must not keep skipping your meals as you do. You only make your symptoms all the worse.”

“Nausea and lack of appetite are symptoms,” Cullen reminded him, wearily. “If I cannot eat, I cannot force myself.”

While he had generally been reluctant about pushing him on this topic, at last the mage laid down his fork onto his plate. “I’m afraid you have the wrong end of the stick, darling.” He raised his napkin to brush his lips, leaning back, his frown and tone sincere and thoughtful. “Lyrium is a living thing inside of you. After such a long period of ingestion, it has, for lack of a better term, taken root in your very tissues.”

It was an odd way to describe it, but given some of the disturbing properties discovered regarding red lyrium, Cullen was willing to shelve his doubt temporarily and at least listen. He flipped over a bite of green beans with his fork, and idly considered putting them in his mouth. He did, since Dorian seemed to approve. His stomach objected, but not strenuously.

“When you took lyrium regularly, it was always granted an ever-expanding source of energy - of nutrients, for lack of a better metaphor,” he went on, one set of fingertips curling gently in the air, then rising to push back a lock of shorter hair that escaped from the loose knot swept back and pinned at the back of his head. “Now that you are not taking it, the lyrium in your system feeds upon _you_ instead. It has permeated almost every part of your body to that end. It will not _stop_ consuming you simply because you refuse to give your body nourishment; instead you aid it by increasing your own suffering, and weakening your body.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” he asked, despondently.

“I myself am exceptionally prone to seasickness,” he remarked.

“I… wasn’t aware.”

“No?” He smiled faintly. “I thought I’d complained loudly enough for everyone to hear it.” That made him feel like he should have been aware, though there was no accusation in it. “Well, when one takes a long sea voyage, you can hardly starve yourself for the duration. You must take in sustenance, even if you are unable to retain it. Let your body get out of it what it can. Far better to keep your strength up - nausea is the smaller price to pay, love.” He reached for his cup of tea, blowing a stream of heat from the top simply to watch the steam dance, and then sipping it, eyes closing to relish the warmth.

It was true enough, he realized, and sighed as he realized he would have to make eating regularly an objective, as much as he did dressing or his job. He raised his eyes to the mage. Dorian’s pet names seemed mostly reflexive, unconscious. Though once or twice, he had caught himself out at it and either cut himself off or changed tacks, looking just a touch discomfited when he did. It was so honest that he found he didn’t have the heart to be disturbed by it, particularly when accompanied with that softened but reassuring tone.

Cullen just hadn’t expected him to be so… _doting_ , perhaps. _You deserve to be loved_ , he had said with utter conviction. With The Iron Bull as his partner, the Dorian he knew best was every bit as headstrong, demanding, and flippant as he had been from the first. This other - Dorian _Rutherford_ , he colored slightly even to think the combination of names in his head - had gone through things that had changed him greatly.

Thoughtfully, he dug his thumb into the edge of the desk. The Commander hadn’t known Dorian got seasick. Nor that he spoke Orlesian. He began to wonder what else he didn’t know about this man - had his other self grasped all of his mage husband’s secrets? Even that seemed far-fetched, with such a complex creature. “I know so little about you,” he found himself saying quietly, the room still in the late-afternoon light, his breath barely disturbing the small motes of dust dancing in the shafts of sunlight from the window behind him.

“Well, we’ve only been friends for three years, by your reckoning.” Whether the inflection was supposed to go on the ‘only’ or the ‘friends’ part, he could not be sure. The dry sarcasm was familiar, along with the curling half-smile. “Anyway, I suppose you never will,” he went on, a little more seriously, after another sip of tea. “I’ve been advised that _your_ Dorian will be heading to Tevinter, sooner rather than later. You’ve very nearly missed your chance at knowing something incredible, darling.” Then he soothed the perceived reprimand with a wink.

“Hardly _my_ Dorian,” he remarked, and paused. “How do you know so much about lyrium?” he asked. “ _Bull’s_ Dorian has no interest in the stuff.”

“When I married an ex-Templar, it came along with the vows and the outrageously tacky wedding gifts,” he set down his tea and went to cover his plate. Cullen noted that he had hardly finished half of his food as well. He raised his eyebrow, prompting Dorian to indulge him with tales of how outlandishly clueless or wildly lopsided their gifts were.

“Vivienne’s gift kept rolling off its little stand - a perfectly horrid Orlesian glass… I don’t know, _objet d’art,_ which cost as much as an apartment in Val Royeaux,” he laughed, and Cullen couldn’t help but chuckle at the image. “Four different editions of the Chant, Southern edition only, and two hideous Burning Andraste sculptures which were _not_ permitted in any room I would ever consent to have marital relations in, by the Maker,” he shuddered. Cullen swallowed even at the tactfully-worded mention of _marital relations_. “Josie gave us the finest bed linens I have ever felt against my skin, which were lovely, but rarely used because _your_ ceiling had a great bloody _hole_ in it,” this spoken as though it were his own fault and Dorian still blamed him.

“So the room and the linens were yours, but the ceiling is all my fault?”

“Smart man, Cullen Rutherford,” he examined his fingernails with a familiar, flirtatious air.

Pronouns were confusing, but the warmth was natural and good, without the bitter edge he'd come to expect. Deflecting him before he went on too much of a tangent, he tried to laugh again, holding his hands up in surrender. “Were there any _good_ gifts?”

“Cassandra’s matching enchanted daggers were the perfect mix of darling and bloodthirsty,” he remarked thoughtfully. “Watching her agonize over what to pick was a gift in its own right. And Rainier made me this,” he reached out to touch the staff leaning on the edge of the desk. “Honestly, it’s almost the only thing I actually _use_. I don’t count any of the gifts that were still arriving after the funeral.”

Aghast at the abrupt change of topic, Cullen swallowed hard.

“Oh, but Mia made the softest quilt,” he went on dreamily. “It’s so cold in Skyhold; I rather wish I had it with me now.” He reached out as though to pick up the teacup again, but his fingertips traced the rim instead. “My mother actually sent money, behind Father’s back. I never could understand what she was thinking, but it did allow me to pay for Rosalie and Branson to come to Skyhold for the…” He cleared his throat. “The worst gift, though…” he pursed his lips. “That was either my Father’s disownment, or Sera’s bees. Have your pick.” He finished his cup in one shot, as though it were alcohol. “Bee stings do heal, however.”

He caught Cullen’s eyes as he leaned forward to set the cup down. “Oh, do forgive me,” he murmured, sounding tired. “I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

“I… no, it’s not,” he cleared his throat. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” he said, and poured a little more tea for them both, with careful motions of his bare wrist measuring the heavy kettle. “But I’ve been informed that being _not fine_ is acceptable at times.”

Picking up his own cup, Cullen tried his hand at appearing even half so relaxed as the mage. “Why… did your Father disown you?” he asked, as delicately as he could. “I was given to understand that he rather preferred to patch things up with you, in Redcliffe.”

Dorian paused, with his teacup halfway hiding his mouth, and then lowered it. “My father only ever wanted me on _his_ terms,” he explained, simply, bitterly. “His terms did not include…” he seemed to become stuck on the choice of verbiage he wanted to proceed with.

“Me,” he supplied, with resignation. “Or rather - your husband,” Cullen found himself flushing, fingers scratching at the short hair at the nape of his neck. The mage said nothing at all until the Fereldan man found himself able to look up at him again, finding the calm, steady gaze taking him in.

“Quite so,” he murmured at last, apologetically. He sipped at the tea again. “I got a bargain, I suppose.”

Eyeing him in muted astonishment, Cullen realized after a moment that he actually seemed to believe that. “Why?” he asked, and his companion turned away from his contemplation of the top of the desk to look up at him with a surge of desperate warmth.

“Do I need a reason?” Dorian asked quietly, gaze frank on his. “I love you. I need no other justification.” Just about the time that Cullen felt the heat of a thousand fires flush his entire face and neck, heartbeat stuttering in his chest, the former _altus_ seemed to realize exactly what words he’d unhesitatingly framed. His entire body tensed, eyes falling shut with an expression of almost mortal ache.

One long breath shuddered out of his chest and back in, like each of them picked up the burden of carrying that heavy breath in turns for a moment, and the former _altus_ set down his teacup unsteadily. Not the delicate poise of breakfast in the War Room, but the heavy hand of regret denting the wood. “I’m… _so_ sorry, Commander,” he began, dragging the apology up from somewhere so deep inside that it was like scavenging for the last vegetables in the root cellar at the end of a long winter. “I ...should not have said that. I must be making you so uncomfortable,” he hazarded gingerly, rubbing one hand over his face.

Cullen tried to analyze his own reaction. Really, he did. He looked down into the palm of his hands, ignoring the strange speediness of his pulse and the way his own breath caught in his throat. It was not as easy to shake the rich, deep voice of the man who'd spoken the words, or the simple, unashamed passion behind them, but he tried. _Am I… bothered by it?_ he wondered. The mage came by it so naturally - it was impossible to pretend that this wavelength between them didn’t exist. But as for how he was supposed to _feel_ about it...

“I - I know you aren’t him,” he said, and not for the first time, though the defense just sounded so _tired_. As he spoke, he stood, stretching his leg and taking hold of his staff like a lifeline. “I think I know that better than anyone. There is so much of him in you, obviously -” he had his back turned to him now, shoulders strong and squared off. “My husband’s voice; his hands, his humor - even the way you smell,” he swallowed thickly. “You have those, but you are not him, and I’m not trying to pretend you are. I see you as unique from him.”

He wanted to say something, but he was normally so tongue-tied by these things, so admittedly awkward, and he just didn’t know what feelings flitting around inside him were the ones he should reach out for. The Fereldan man closed his hands in his lap, jaw tightening, and looked up at his back. He still held himself stiffly; noble pride on a knife's edge. _What is it like, to be your husband?_ The pang of longing curled in his stomach, sharp and unforgiving, filling his gut with unaccustomed tightness, like an over-tuned harp string. What would it be like to curl up next to his hip while he sat up late reading in bed? Nudge him off in the morning with a kiss so he could sleep til noon, warm planes of sun rippling over his bare back? To meet his eyes across the room, and share a secret language, like _Five more bites? Please?_

“I know I have no place here,” he said, pacing a few awkward steps away, and then back. His gaze was intense, but he made an effort to curb the blow. “But... I can’t help the way I feel. You’re not him, but when I’m with you, I... feel love.” His hands curled into fists, his eyes moving everywhere but at his own. “I know you’ve been trying to be patient,” he said softly. “I’m not asking anything of you, I swear it. Just please, don’t be angry.”

Angry? That one word blew his mind empty and clean. Did Dorian really expect him to be angry - to be unsympathetic about this? _I don’t want,_ and _Would you,_ and _I’m not,_ all formed behind his marred lips, and he parted them hesitantly, not knowing which to start, but maybe considering the words _I would like_ as his first choice, which brought him to a strangled halt.

“I should go,” Dorian took mercy on him - on them both - after a scant number of heartbeats had passed. His voice reminded Cullen of the ancient stone ruins he had passed on his last ride through the Hinterlands; dull, shadowed stone, abandoned and crumbling. The small words jolted him out of his shock, and he watched the long, ringed fingers pick up his coat and overtunic from the back of the chair, turning to limp toward the door. “Goodnight, Commander.”

He rose before he had planned to do it, and crossed the room much more quickly than the mage. Dorian reached for the latch with his empty right hand, and Cullen reached past him, palm falling heavily against the upper panel of the weathered wooden structure. Dorian stilled in his tracks, fingers curving, recoiling from the latch just slightly as he realized how they were standing. The taller man leaned his weight against the door, the inside of his left arm just brushing the mage’s left shoulder. The space quickly warmed, heavy with their shared presence.

Not quite touching, but somehow intangibly _holding_. Cullen breathed in slowly, trying to form words, and instead his senses were overwhelmed by the scent of the man whose body heat radiated toward him. The way Dorian’s hand came away from the door, like he didn’t _want_ to go, filled his belly with cautious yearning, spilling through his stomach. Slowly, the mage reached out again, but it was only to press his right palm to the door; letting it hold his weight as well.

“Dorian,” he murmured, and the word was almost stranded between them. But the warm golden-brown skin at the nape of his neck prickled almost imperceptibly, at the feel of his breath hitting it. He found himself leaning in just a little, breathing him in. It was different from the _altus_ he knew, like Tevinter cologne was now too passé for him - but it was the same man underneath, and he felt _awake_ as he breathed him in, a new level of awareness of him settling in.

Trust a man as cosmopolitan as he to taste the tension in the air. He reacted slowly, however; careful and precise. Whether he was surprised or not, he swallowed and turned his head, only a fraction. “Commander.”

“Call me by my name,” he whispered, hating the cold distance of his title, which had always kept him safe before. The need to hear that voice calling him right now became the sudden, singular focus of the moment.

The tiny surrender that shuddered through the mage’s body started at his eyes, which closed heavily in something like a flinch, through his neck as his chin dropped, and his shoulders followed, sagging slightly - his whole body sank a fraction in response. _Don’t do this,_ it seemed to say. His face turned away once more.

And he shouldn’t. He was hurting Dorian, who was already in pain, and he didn’t know why he was pushing, only - parting like this felt intolerable after all that affection, a warmth filling the room that would be obliterated in the Frostback air if he let him go. He should stand, lean away. He was trapping Dorian between himself and the door, as though he hadn’t just been reminded that it wasn’t him that this man belonged to.

Only, just when he’d convinced himself he had overstepped horribly, he heard it uttered softly into the small space before them. “Cullen,” he whispered back, his voice tight and broken; an entire symphony of emotion, squeezed from his voice like water from delicate silk. “ _Cullen_ ,” he said again, no louder, only more urgently, and _Maker_ , but there was that secret language. Desire and love, pain and longing; a thousand other, more nebulous things hiding behind it. From the first, some part of him had known that when Dorian said _Cullen_ , he was saying _I need you_.

Jumbled and warm inside, he leaned forward. His lips brushed the nape of his neck, and Dorian’s head fell forward with a soundless exhale. His skin was hot, and he was shivering with each brush of lips. “ _Cullen_ ,” he murmured again, with more hunger this time, just a touch of reluctant warning, and a slide of his palm slowly up the door. Something in his gut cramped tightly with wanting.

The want in the exhalation gripped him with hooks in his chest and belly, reeling him in, he parted his lips hesitantly, closing them around the darker flesh, mouthing at the back of his neck to earn a gasp. Dorian tasted salty and heady, like the warmth of sunshine, and he rolled his head, baring his neck right where the taller man wanted it. His right hand rose, and pressed gently to the firm, flat planes of his lower back through the fine crimson cotton, thumb smoothing over the spot where his hip bone and spine overlapped. His mouth felt wet as he pulled back, licking his lips to savor the aftertaste of Dorian’s skin, and he opened to trace his tongue deeper into the loose collar of his shirt.

His thumb rubbed hard over the sharp bone of the Tevinter man’s hip, following it forward around the elegant shape of his body and earning a sigh. His palm fit so neatly around his hip that it made his heart beat harder, fingers slipping forward to spread low over the mage’s stomach. He opened his mouth wider around the side tendons of his neck, like he would bite into a ripe fruit, sucking a faint mark into the vulnerable skin.

Resistance breaking, Dorian swayed back into him, back meeting his armored chest, the infernal metal keeping him from feeling the heat seeping through the fabric between them, as it did under his palm. Still, Dorian was in his grasp, and despite the blasted armor, it felt like that was where he should be. His thumb rubbed idly in small circles against him.

Delightfully tensing, the darker-skinned man’s abdominal muscles flexed in a shudder under his hand; this new angle gave him open access to sensitive areas of his throat. Dark hair rested on his right shoulder, and Dorian’s lips parted with a hitched breath when Cullen bit gently against the flesh beneath the nodule of his throat. “This… this isn’t… wise,” Dorian gritted out, but his body rolled into the touch, left hand coming up to rest over Cullen’s, right still pushing against the door.

“I know,” he breathed into the curve of his throat. How had he never noticed how enticing he looked with his head thrown back? His teeth grazed the corner of his jaw, the line of his chin. “I like the way you say my name,” he whispered, feeling heavy with some unfamiliar hunger as he worked his teeth and lips back down his throat, feeling him swallow; he was becoming hard.

“Maker, yes,” Dorian moaned low when Cullen’s hand smoothed heavily up the hard planes of his lean torso, arching into the touch. “ _Wait,_ Cullen,” he shook his head, and forced himself upright and out of his arms, forward into the door. Then he turned, and the Commander took in his wide, darkened eyes, flushed cheeks, and the little reddish marks faint on his throat, eyes trailing them with fascination. The mage was breathing hard. “I thought you didn’t -”

“I…” he bit his lower lip, trying not to stare at Dorian’s mouth when he licked his lips. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just…” he tried to engage his brain again, eyes flicking up at him. “If you don’t want me, push me away,” he managed at last, feeling the tide of heat recede slowly as he concentrated. “If it’s too much, or too soon, or - tell me you want me to stop.”

“Are you _mad_?” The former _altus_ demanded. “I’m _leaving_ in -” but he didn’t know. No one knew. Even as he protested, he watched Cullen’s eyes on his face, and his own gaze furtively traced the scar on his lip, the shape of his jaw. The flash of heat made his obvious attraction unmistakable. His spare clothes had already fallen to the ground, his staff had teetered and fallen against the bookshelf. Dorian raised his hands, gliding them over the faint stubble on his cheeks. Pale skin tingled beneath his fingertips, his mouth turned and met them awkwardly with little nips. “I don’t want to hurt you, to complicate things -”

“It’s already complicated,” he rationalized, and his hand rose, thumb and forefinger circling the cinnamon-colored skin of one wrist. “It’s just… a few days,” he said, hiding the shakiness in his voice, and Dorian’s eyes were wide on him. “I’ve never - I don’t know what this is, but I want… I want to know. If you don’t - if you can't do this again, then…”

A small, pained sound came from the mage’s throat. Fingernails grazed down the sides of his face, and he dragged his hands down the front of the armor, tugging him closer. There was something ravenous in his eyes, and Cullen took his mouth hard but chastely, following that cue and his own urge, not recognizing the vibrant lust blooming in his own chest. He’d never kissed with such force, crushing Dorian’s lips to his own as he did.

His partner’s mouth opened immediately, moist and inviting. Cullen wanted to taste him this way also, and he let his tongue be coaxed in, feeling his face flush as he did. He could feel the lack in his own technique as Dorian surged to meet him, tongue curling around his. The first of their kisses were intense and messy, but the mouth he met knew his own, and knew the way of things; he unexpectedly found himself as eager to be taught this art as he ever was to pick up a sword.Falling back against the door, the former _altus_ hooked Cullen closer to him with his bad leg, the two falling against the wooden panel.

Breaking for air, he leaned back to look into the eyes meeting his, clouded with desire. He ran this thumb over Dorian’s reddened lips, his left hand coming off the door, and his weight crashed into the mage, who made an almost comical yelp of pain. Alarmed, he backed up a step, but Dorian wrapped around him, coming with, and their tongues were clashing again, sinuous and velvet-soft, driving goosebumps up his arms. His alarm was subsumed by something that spoke of the mutual desire to devour. The mage broke away just barely, and put a kiss on the scarred corner of his mouth; an abortive, fond movement like asking him to hold the wisk while he cracked the eggs into the cake batter.

The domesticity of that peck was somehow reinforced by the movement of the man’s clever hands at his sides, sliding under his now loosened mantle. The breastplate suddenly released around his torso, weight coming free like a duchess being cut free of her corset, and as he breathed his arms were jerked back behind him by the movement of cloth, roughness spiking adrenaline through him. Gasping, he breathed in _Dorian_ and the heavy scent of his skin, his breath, the brush of his moustache creating a fascinating roughness compared the satin feel of his open mouth.

A hand curled eagerly at his nape, the Tevinter man’s mouth on his, tongue swirling against his own and scraping teasingly against his teeth on the way out. When the Commander was released for another ragged breath, Dorian was throwing the furred garment over his shoulder so hard it caught and hung on the bookshelf. The dark-skinned man lowered the breastplate to the ground carefully by its straps with one hand, but it still caused a clatter. Burning silver eyes never left his own as he did.

He’d already been more physically interested in what was happening between them than he had ever been with another man in his life, but the intensity of this focus left him breathlessly aroused, and he felt challenged to respond in kind. “If I didn’t believe you before, I would now,” he muttered, returning the short kiss he’d been holding, between his words. Ah, that soft lower lip yielded so when bitten. “You undress me faster than I can do it myself.” A musical laugh broke through the former _altus’_ ragged breathing, leaving him smirking.

Cullen felt so much lighter, his shoulders and ribs aching sweetly with release from their metallic burdens, and his arms swept the mage up close against his body before he could allow himself time to question their course. Hard form pressed to him in the chill air, a heartbeat pounding against his own, and the way his arms fit completely around the mage, who let himself just _fall into_ it - all of these little things filled him up like a banquet, left him sighing as he leaned down to meet his mouth again eagerly. Something in his body thrummed eagerly as Dorian’s arms threaded up around his shoulders, the faint grin left from his earlier statement tasting like honey and chamomile from the tea.

Arresting their stumbling motion away from the door, he pushed them back toward the ladder, and when Dorian was pinned against it, he pushed his whole body into that of the darker man. His fingers dug into the smooth dark hair, jerking it clumsily loose as he pulled Dorian to kiss him again, striving to imitate things with his tongue that he was already imagining with his body - thrusting, twisting, licking deep into him - and his thumb mapped the old whitened scar slashing his jaw just at the corner of his thin goatee.

Groaning, Dorian dragged him close again as he had against the door, and this time there was no armor to stop their bodies from meeting, chest to thighs. Dorian seemed torn between a satisfied sigh and a tiny moan when their bodies touched more intimately. His hips jerked into Dorian’s when he felt the weight and hardness of his cock, confined in flattering leather. The friction, the pressure, sent a bright jolt through his body, and Cullen moaned back into his mouth as his hips bucked in response, a flush of fire racing through him. All the muscles of his lower abdomen felt both taut inside, and melting with heat.

 _Maker_ , why did it feel so perfect? Why was his skin searing in the Wintermarch air? He’d never felt this mindless, urgent pull toward anyone before. No woman had returned his advances so perfectly - with fervor and also respect, passion and wit. He pulled away, gasping, when he felt Dorian’s hands slipping under the shirt he’d somehow freed from the Commander’s trousers, hands like an encroaching inferno below his ribs.

Panting, Dorian rested his head back against the ladder, and watched his face avidly through heavy lidded eyes. His lips, already full and quick to smile, were reddened and kissed, slack for air, and his hair fell half-undone over his forehead and framing his face. “Cullen, _fuck_ ,” he whispered. “You’re so amazing.”

The words were a tender punch beneath his ribs, the attention like a caress, and meanwhile his fingers curled in the Fereldan man’s belt, pulling his hips in again. He was unsure how to connect the dots between that and wherever they would end up, but he leaned in, entranced by how it felt to just rut together, exulting at the tiny moans his grinding motion drew from the other man’s open lips. He’d expected this to feel _wrong_ somehow. But it didn’t; there was a bone-deep rhythm that dragged him forward unresisting, and when Dorian grabbed his rear and ground back against him, small sounds prowling low in his chest, he rocked into him hard, claiming his mouth like he wanted to crawl into him.

Breaking to suck in a breath, the mage let his head fall back, and Cullen gave an eager murmur, heartbeat stuttering as he leaned forward. His kisses painted the smooth, tender skin under his jaw, his tongue moistening a path for his lips, and he let his hand slide upward from their grip in the fabric at Dorian’s hips, the other trailing down. Both palms smoothed over the broad plain of his chest, causing him to shudder and raise both legs to wrap around his hips, the left one not so nimbly, but the right reeling him in tightly where the tiniest flex of their thighs sent pleasure rippling up and down through their bodies like a drug. His hands flew to hold his partner’s weight.

“ _Maker_ , you feel so good,” he growled, lifting him thoughtlessly by his thighs. The Commander’s lips and teeth were now down somewhere near Dorian’s clavicle, buried in the laces of his shirt which he yanked open with his teeth, and he felt the jerk of hips that those words elicited, the reflexive buck rewarding him directly for speaking aloud. His words were cut off when Dorian slipped one hand into his hair, nails scratching across his scalp. He’d never had anyone do that, and it sent cold shivers down his arms, his nipples hardening so suddenly he was a little light-headed.

It seemed that the Tevinter man was urging him onward. He pulled back with that grip in his hair and dropped his own chin, capturing Cullen’s now free mouth, and placing his lips just barely upon his. “Cullen, you know that I want you,” he whispered. “You could have me, any way you want me,” he said, the movements of his lips dizzying, the words themselves intoxicating. “I want what you want,” he promised. “Even if it’s no more than this, just to be here with you...” He slowly, deliberately deepened the kiss from a reserved press of lips to a slower rendition of that scalding plundering they had tasted before, moaning once softly down into his mouth when Cullen made it a point to drive his cock against the answering hardness before him. “...I wouldn’t at all be put out if you chose to fuck me silly, I’ll admit,” he added wryly, though altogether breathless, when the kiss broke.

Fire raced up his spine as he curled toward the mage and bucked against him again, lips tracing the scar on his jaw, mouth open against the pulse at his neck. “I haven’t any idea what I’m doing, with a man,” Cullen admitted with a groan, and though his words were choked with reluctant self-consciousness, for once he felt more annoyed at his inexperience than shy at the fear of judgement.

He didn’t feel any more ashamed of his long celibacy, for once, than the former _altus_ did of his magic. If this was what it was supposed to feel like when one got it right - this connection, this intensity - then he knew he’d simply never had it before. His lyrium-laced recollections paled in comparison to this.

Light laughter, not at his expense, but simply in enjoyment of him, and Dorian kissed him again, more affectionate than anything. His legs loosened, hands resting on Cullen’s biceps to support his weight as he slipped back down to the floor. His hands smoothed back up under the shirt, climbing slowly toward his ribs.

“May I?” he asked, eyebrows arching along with the formality, though he took Cullen’s timid snort of laughter as an affirmative, and pushed it up, hands smoothing over his ribs and pectoral muscles in a flat slide. He raised his arms when the mage pushed it off behind the Commander’s shoulder, carelessly, letting the draft prickle his shoulders. Their eyes met when the fabric rose, and it made him feel surprisingly vulnerable under that sharp gray gaze.

“Good. Now, kiss me,” he demanded lazily, leaning back against the ladder again with a teasing smile. As passionate as he was - as they both were, really - he saw that the mage refused to take himself too seriously, and it served to help keep him relaxed, as did this chance to catch their breath. “Just think of all those times in the past you wished you could have shut me up.”

Rolling his eyes, he complied, rather than pointing out the obvious. Instead he merely filled his senses with the way the man’s full, soft lips moved against his own, the taste of him, the way his ringed hands slid across his bare skin - shoulders, arms, with the same consuming eagerness of his mouth when he pushed his tongue past the taller man’s and took the battle back to the Commander’s own turf.

When that kiss wrapped up, their foreheads met, though it took a slight tug downward for Cullen to catch the hint, and Dorian simply took a deep breath, there in his arms. He was so solid; this was _real_. He felt himself finally starting to get a little nervous when the darker pair of flushed lips pushed his head back, kissing a line along his neck.

Dorian returned what Cullen had already given to him, and it didn’t come across as demeaning, or emasculating, like the boys in the Templar barracks had led him to believe. He’d thought he lived in a world of defined boundaries between men and women. Just now, there were no women present at all, and Dorian Rutherford wanted to bite sharp little marks into his skin, and count his scars standing on flushed skin with his fingertips; wanted to be the one undressing _him_ , and he liked it more than he could say.

“What do you want?” he was whispering in the Fereldan man’s ear, biting the lobe momentarily, sucking at the skin behind it and uncoiling his body flush against his own. He remembered the thought he’d had earlier, of Dorian turning over to go back to sleep in a bed they shared, and the image his mind had conjured of that flawless golden-brown skin all the way down to the generous curve of his arse. _Maker_ , his face heated at the idea of taking this man to his bed at all.

“I…” there was no way not to make it sound weird, to his thinking. “I want to see your back,” he explained at last. The look it earned him was brightly warm, and curious, a soft curl of a familiar half-smile shadowed under his mussed locks.

“You may,” he replied with an amused twitch of one eyebrow, “...though there’s nothing special about it.” First, however, he kicked off his boots, one at a time, leaving them haphazardly at the bottom of the reverse side of the ladder. Then he reached up, arms crossing and taking hold of his crimson shirt, pulling it up over his head in a long sweep. He tossed it across the room in a bundle, and then leaned forward to tease the hollow of the Commander’s throat with his tongue, fingers curling through the sparse golden-brown hair over his chest.

Dorian’s was dark, he noticed in the glimpse he got, but there was exceptionally little of it. He was distracted, perhaps intentionally, by long fingertips walking around the cage of his ribs to rake down his sides. Before he knew it, a clever tongue lapped at one of his nipples, a small bite yanking a jolt from him along with a yelp. Laughing, the mage leaned back against the ladder, hands still on him, toying with the other nipple and soothing him with pets across his shoulder.

A moment was granted to him to stare at the other man in appreciation. He swallowed, his hand following the path of his eyes down his elegant neck and shoulder, thumb digging into the muscle there before trailing down. Cullen’s lips parted, words already forgotten. His eyes met the darkened gray ones that stared back at him, full of promises he barely knew how to read. Boldly, he let his fingers trail down the other man’s stomach, feeling the reaction of all the muscles that told him it was as sensitive there as it was for him.

Shivering, Dorian stepped out from under his touch with a surprisingly neat movement, tucking his injured leg behind the ladder with care, peering through the rungs. “You may see my back,” he repeated, “... _upstairs_ ,” he added, and began to climb the ladder right before his eyes. Cullen reached around and caught at him, petulantly but gently, with the playfulness the mage encouraged, hands sliding over his tantalizing backside. Dorian gave a lively chuckle and wiggled out of the hold, even with the Commander boldly squeezing to keep him in place.

 _What a handful_ , he realized, gazing up afterward, his hand dragging down along the soft worn leather clinging to a shapely rear, thigh, calf, and he was gone, climbing up to his bedroom clad in only his leather trousers and jewelry, depending on what was beneath. His mouth was dry to think of what he might be invited to do with any of what he had seen, or felt, or what yet may lay unseen. Glancing around, he realized they’d left a trail to their debauchery, and blushed, resolving to come back down and pick things up. Later.

For now, he took a deep, steadying breath, and began the climb, blushing anew to realize how much more difficult it was while hard as a sword hilt. He bit his lip, the part of him that knew how far this was outside his comfort zone reminding him that he still had no idea what he would do once he reached the top.

Dorian had lit the candles, the flare of his magic prickling over his exposed skin, like a phantom version of the mage’s caress. He was pulling the necklaces from around his neck, dropping them on the side table, and he glanced back as Cullen stopped to remove his boots, mostly for something constructive to do. He drifted toward the dilapidated wardrobe and smoothed his hands down the doors with a taunting look over his shoulder as he threw them open. “Still keep the oil behind your copy of the Chant of Light, dirty boy?”

Flushing brightly, he couldn’t even stutter out an objection. “L-like you can talk, you flirt!” was the best he could do, and it only renewed Dorian’s laughter into a second round as he retrieved the oil, tossing the closed phial up toward the pillows of the bed.

“Do relax, darling. I love that about you, you know.” He was unlacing the front of his leathers, but he didn’t pull them off, instead throwing himself back bonelessly, wrong-ways across the bed, propped on his elbows with his knees spread open. “If you’re a very good boy, I’ll fuck you while you recite your prayers next time,” he purred.

Cullen realized that he had been absolutely spot on in his guess; listening to that cultured tongue giving voice to such filth made him want to fly apart inside. He came over to the bed and moved to join him, but Dorian put up a hand, touching his belly and making the muscles around his pelvis bunch by scraping his fingernails over them. “Let me?” he asked, rather endearingly, and the Commander sucked in an uncertain breath, nodding.

Sitting up, Dorian’s position became immediately obvious, even as he tugged down the front of Cullen’s trousers. The cold filtering down from the hole in the ceiling chilled his most intimate skin, where he sprung free of his smallclothes. Dorian let out a little sigh of relish, warm breath ghosting over the head of his cock. Palming his skin, he used the heel of his hands to push the trousers and smallclothes down to his thighs, and leaned forward to kiss his way down from his navel to the base of his erection, making his muscles jump and flutter, the head burning in response in the cool air. 

Sharp gray eyes glimmered up the length of his torso at him, while the world narrowed down to the sensation of his mouth sucking marks into his skin. “You awful tease,” he muttered darkly but self-consciously, closing his eyes, unable to take both the sight and the sensation at once. Opening them again, he saw the mussed dark hair bending close to his skin; the dark silhouette of where his skin reflecting the light was broken up by Dorian’s duskier tone. His own hands hovered uncertainly.

“Says you,” the mage shot back, lifting his mouth and leaving a cooling spot of moisture on the Commander’s skin, driving a shudder up through his body. “You don’t even have the candles to look at me properly up here after you asked,” he complained lightly. “Should I be offended?” He bit down, tenderly but firmly, right in the very soft region between his organ and the crease of his thigh. It hurt just enough to draw his entire attention to it, and made his balls tighten and ache slightly. His thighs jumped against the urge to move. “At attention, soldier,” he ordered, his voice serious but light. “Hands behind your back, and look up, darling. Do you see any constellations up there?”

Cullen tilted his chin, his body taking parade rest instead of attention, which better suited his instructions. Dorian used the opportunity to trail fingertips up the sensitive insides of his thighs, but he was somehow not uncomfortable. Supple hands were framing him but not touching him, and he let out a shuddering breath as he felt a soft, flexible warmth brush just the very tip of his cock, a jolt of pleasure shooting down his length in response, making him harden further. Responding with a groan, he realized Dorian’s tongue had slipped into the slit and lapped up the fluid that wanted to leak from him, tasting his flavor with an obscene smack of the tongue.

“The Sword of Mercy,” he whispered, having glimpsed it before his eyes fell shut.

“It’s uncouth to brag about oneself, Cullen. Oh! You meant Judex,” the mage chuckled, naming the ancient moniker for the constellation. “Bonus points if you find the Watchful Eye before I let you come on my face,” he rumbled boldly, and followed it up immediately by wrapping his mouth around the head of his cock, making a subtle savoring sound in the back of his throat, tongue tracing the shape of him avidly and firmly.

Shuddering at the combination of the mental image and the sensation of sinking in between those full, soft lips, Cullen moaned out loud, feeling his tongue lap up the underside of him, leaving him hot and throbbing in its wake. “ _Filthy_ mage,” he whispered at last when he could hear over the pounding in his own ears, earning a chuckle. Dorian pulled back with a wet, open-mouthed breathing noise. It sounded amazing, and he shivered again, letting the man sink back onto him farther this time, rocking a little further down with each movement; swallowing hard and then pulling up, leaving him wet and just starting to get cold in the chilly air before that hot mouth came back again, his muscles rippling against all sorts of urges as he gasped openly, tiny rocking motions barely withheld.

While the mage worked his way down, his hands worked up, eventually reaching high enough to, while he was engaged in a downward shift, pinch both nipples at once, drawing a cry and a forward buck out of Cullen’s hips, plunging himself into Dorian’s throat to the hilt. “ _Ohh Maker_ ,” he breathed softly, feeling the way the other man swallowed hard around him, tongue curling around his shaft as it was able. He choked a little, but refused to back off, tightening and swallowing again. Heat raced up the taller man’s body, boiling white-hot over his skin and leaving his cock pulsing, though plenty of scorching blood still raced through his body. Cullen felt his mouth fall open, head falling back further as he reached forward to steady himself on his partner, hips flinching once.

Breaking parade rest, panting, he found one hand on the other man’s head, one on his shoulder, and he petted over the ruined hair gently. He wanted to get his hands in it, if he could just take it down. So he did. Dorian hummed approval at him deep in his throat, right before he had to pull back to gasp for air, and the vibration of his throat wrenched a little high-pitched _Ah_ from Cullen’s lips. Strings of saliva and precome connected his lips to the Commander’s glistening length when he pulled off, and his breath hitched at the sight, stirring him beyond words.

“Magelight,” he demanded in a guttural rasp, wanting to see him better. “Can you?”

Eyes flickering up at him, Cullen saw a sudden bloom of fire-colored light behind him, reflected off of the former _altus’_ face, his skin, becoming a glitter in his eyes. The familiar prickle of magic raced down his neck and shoulders, making his fine hairs stand on end. Now that he could see better, Dorian took both his hands with his own, and put them both on his head, curling his fingers to show him. _Grip my hair_. “So that’s why you wear it long,” he breathed, fisting it.

After a short grin, he sank down on the Fereldan man’s cock again, with great abandon, and in gratitude, he curled his fingers and pulled gently. Every tug got a sound or gasp of approval, and he backed off for a moment to tease the tip of him again with the flat of his tongue. He looked incredible, wanton; the eyes locking on his were half-hazed with pleasure even though he was giving rather than receiving. “More,” he demanded roughly, and Cullen pulled harder at his hair. “ _Yes_.”

In the meantime, Dorian’s hands reached around and squeezed his bare arse, directing Cullen to thrust into his mouth. It seemed disrespectful, but there was no denying how fucking hot it looked just taking his mouth - the thrill he felt while filling him - and Dorian’s eyes fell shut, fingernails scratching at his thighs with urgent pleasure when he choked again, head yanked sharply back by the Commander’s brutal grip. A hot spiral of need wound tighter within him, hitching his breath as he pulled back, thrusting again after a small pause for air.

“I’m not - not far,” he growled, struggling to hold himself back but unsure of the etiquette. After a moment more indulgence, Dorian sucked his way back off with a push of palms to his thighs, taking most of the moisture with him, and swallowed noisily. He gave one last lingering lick and leaned back onto his elbows again, one hand coming up to wipe daintily at the corners of his lips. How could he be so damn cute after taking that much cock down his throat, while Cullen felt like a sweat-slicked mess? He panted quietly, bringing his breathing back into line, swaying in place and dragging himself back from the brink with both hands. Long, cold breaths and no warm mouth brought him back to sanity, though a whine rattled in the back of his throat at first.

“If that’s how you want to finish, I’ll keep going,” he offered, his voice rough and gravelly after all that abuse. The sound of it made another flare of heat rise up in him, how he’d ruined his voice sucking him off, and it drove him to shake his head. Falling forward, he planted one knee between Dorian’s and one hand on the bed, using the other to divest himself of the last of his clothing with a kick back. The mage watched him in approval.

His free hand rose, and he used his fingertips to trace that thin line of facial hair around his mouth, cut with such precision and elegance. He still took some pride in himself despite what he’d been through, and that natural confidence of his was actually pretty alluring, he realized. The smirk that rose to the surface in response was wicked. Kisses now were wet and easy, and came with a new, bitter flavor on his breath when he mapped his mouth again. “You said you wanted to see my back,” he reminded Cullen, his voice low.

“Yes,” he admitted, “but it’s so dark,” he pointed out.

“You can see it more than once.” Sliding his leg from the other side of the blonde-haired man’s own knee, he managed to turn over, facing down into the comforter. Reaching out one arm, he grabbed a pillow and bundled it up under his cheek and shoulders. The magelight he had created grew brighter, though not quite like normal light.

Still, the long, smooth curve of his spine was magnificent and nearly flawless, as he’d thought. A few small scars, both blade and blunt, a few he was just noticing climbing around his left ribs and shoulder, but clearly some effort had been put into keeping himself in one piece over the years. He ran his fingertips down the Tevinter man’s spine, loving the divot it made, the small of his back, the way each little flex of his arms was so clearly transmitted in his muscles. Pressing his lips there, Cullen earned a relaxed hum from the other man and left both a kiss and a bite as a deposit.

Palms roughened from years of combat traced his back, his sides, too-thin waist, and finally, dared at the top of his leathers. Bending forward, he left a mark on his neck, low at his shoulder, and saw him flinch and burrow into the pillow. “Hey,” Dorian whispered as his thumbs dared to slip beneath the hem of his pants. “How do you feel?”

He picked up one hand, and pulled it back to place it on his still-interested cock, and heard a laugh that accompanied the squeeze. “That’s how I feel,” he muttered dryly.

“Okay,” the word sounded like a smile. “Want to take these off of me?”

He did, actually. Cullen slipped a hand under him. He still had waves of nerves, but he kept telling himself this was safe. They were both adults, and currently unattached, and… and it felt _nice_ , actually. He wasn’t intimidated by this. That anxiety was part of what had kept him from this activity with anyone for so long. Truthfully, although failure was his worst fear, it was more the worry that it would hit him _suddenly_ , like his hard limit had been lying in wait, and... 

Candidly, the fear was that he didn’t want to hurt Dorian. He wanted to be capable of this. So he pulled at the laces of his pants and dragged them down slowly. He was, in fact, bare underneath the leathers. Swallowing hard, he laid a line of nervous kisses over his shoulders, so that he had an excuse to not look while he pushed the leathers down, but his curiosity won out. His hand was trailing down over the ample curve of his rear, admiring the full shape.

“I’ve… honestly never seen a man with an arse like this,” he had to laugh after hearing himself at that, and Dorian’s low amusement played counterpoint to the ridiculous nerves he was trying to dispel. Sitting up, he watched his hand cup and squeeze at the full globe in his palm. “Perhaps I’ve been… trying hard not to look, all this time?”

“You can hardly be blamed. I am exceptional in every way,” he allowed smugly, curling his arms under his head. His loose hair was spilled over the pillow. Cullen shifted his weight to crouch over him, and ran his hand through that long hair, lifting and pulling it away from his neck in a single twist, letting his hand spread wide and open on his lower back, sliding down to that gorgeous arse.

“How could he ever let go of you?” he wondered to himself softly, not familiar with the vehemence that suffused his words. “He should have guarded you more closely.”

In profile, he saw Dorian’s face crumple, the candles and the magelight flickering and dimming slightly, and he turned his face into the pillow. Cursing internally, he put his hands on the former _altus’_ shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Dorian,” he apologized. “I don’t know what came over me, I should never have dared to -”

“Enough,” he said softly. There was a long, weighty pause, and then he sucked in a breath, sniffing a little. “It’s enough, Cullen,” he said, and took in a deep breath, pulling his hands out from under his head. “I’m not angry. I’m… I don’t know. I’ll have to come back to it later,” he decided. “For now, you should probably just finish undressing me, hm?”

Apologetically, and quickly, he grabbed the leather pants at the ankle and pulled, shucking them like an ear of corn. He let his hands trail over Dorian’s skin, full of _sorry_ and admiration. He felt the Tevinter man relax slowly beneath him. Taking his time, he trailed his fingers up the back of his arms, and tugged gently at his hair, which made his muscles soften all over. Kisses up his neck had him scraping stubble over the brown shoulders, shivers following.

“Now,” he stirred at last, one fingertip flickering over the edges of both eyes discreetly, his voice unusually deep but surprisingly spirited. “I told you I would defer to you - and I shall - but I do want something, if you will.” He reached up toward the pillows and shook the phial of oil gently. He handed it back over his shoulder, and Cullen took it, with a tense swallow.

“Tell me,” he said, biting his shoulder blade lightly, rubbing his rough cheek over the skin.

“Your fingers,” he explained, “inside me. If you…” he trailed off.

He knew what that served as a precursor to. Swallowing, the Commander found himself not exactly balking, but blushing again. “You mean, you want me to…?”

“Oh - _that_ ,” he replied, clearly feigning lightness. “I would like it, if you wanted to,” he agreed, sincere but trying to stay relaxed. “But even if you do not, I enjoy this by itself.”

“Really?” he wondered, curiosity rising. Dorian didn’t say much more, but he did spread his thighs, hands under him, and Cullen hesitated. “You know I don’t really know how -”

“Don’t fret,” he soothed quietly. “Only say if you don’t wish to. If you do, then use the oil, and go slowly.” He twisted one arm upward over his head on the bed, head on his forearm, the other pulling up under him.

Realizing he would be fucking the mage with his fingers, he flushed, but his cock twitched in the cold air, and he found himself unscrewing the cap. What would that look like? Sound like? It was a rush to think of hearing more of those moans beneath him. Figuring out his decision, Dorian struggled to both knees, left leg bending with some reluctance. He wagered more oil would be better, and let a measure of oil drip into the crevice he would be exploring.

Jumping slightly in surprise, the mage said nothing, but Cullen dipped his fingers as well and then messily screwed the cap back on, turning to chase the rivulet of oil. A small sound emerged from his partner as his fingers slipped toward this most secret area, shadowed still in the dim light, and he breathed easier. With even the stroke of a single digit, Dorian unfurled beneath him, hips pushing upward encouragingly.

Velvet-soft but tight, his entrance seemed unassailable. He let his finger glide past the entrance, down to circle around the back of his balls, curious but not too brave, and then back up again. Chest pressing low to the bed, Dorian lifted his hips again as his finger probed, rubbed with increasing firmness at the tight puckered muscle there. His body fluttered at the hint of an intrusion, but his lips invited him in around a low sigh. “ _Please,_ Cullen,” he begged languidly.

Even though it seemed that there was no gentle way to do this, he pushed a fingertip inside of him, and Dorian moaned into the pillow, holding still at first, forcing his body to relax, to open as much as he could control. When the Commander’s touch stayed more conservative, he pushed himself back onto that finger, taking it to the knuckle with only a small, sharper sound like it had still surprised him. “There you have it,” he murmured, turning his head enough to be heard.

Smooth inside, and tight, the mage seemed to clamp onto his finger at first, muscles tightening outside his body enticingly as well as inside. He eased his finger back, and then in again slowly, feeling the neighboring knuckle press to his rim, stroking the inner passage with a careful curl of his finger. When he pushed in as far as he could go, and his knuckle dug in, Dorian’s hips jerked, then pushed back harder onto his finger. It was such a strange position to find himself in that he kept his touch careful, free hand smoothing down the mage’s back, and curling momentarily around his hip.

Hardly any effort was required to make him accustomed to that one finger, and Cullen gripped his hip, thumb pulling at the flesh of his cheek to open him further, listening as a deep breath pushed itself from the mage’s lungs, hips flexing to meet his touch. “So good, darling; give me another finger,” he asked, his voice rumbling low in his chest. “You won’t break me.”

He thought about teasing him back, _since you’ve asked so well-mannered_ , but instead he merely bit his lip and added the middle finger, withdrawing to stroke the rim of his entrance where it seemed so sensitive, watching him shudder and bury the side of his face into the pillow he clutched in both hands, presenting shamelessly for his touch. Cullen’s signals crossed, not knowing whether to praise or curse, but his second finger found its way inside the leaner man with less difficulty than he expected.

The muscles squeezed his fingers again, and suddenly he just _got_ it - all the romantic lead-up that had eluded him for so long resolved in his head with their earlier warmth, and now his body urging him to push deeper, informing him how easy it would be to fill the mage with a more substantial length, to feel him squeeze and pulse around his cock - it just made so much more sense to him now, the idea of being with a man. Somehow he felt unutterably _stupid_ , but so excited with it that his stomach flipped anxiously.

“ _Kaffas_ ,” Dorian whispered, deep-voiced and throaty, hips pushing back into his fingers. He was so mobile, flexible as his hips rolled in response to the stroking thrust of the Commander’s fingers. If anything, the roughness of them delighted him more than a touch as soft and refined as his own might have done, he gathered. Dorian’s hands pulled at the pillow like a cat, panting as his body loosened and became softer around his fingertips. He made a small noise of frustration when Cullen pulled out and rubbed his fingertips back and forth over the warm, open entrance, wanting to see him shudder again. He was flinching and swearing in Tevene, coaxing his touch with his hips, but the desperate little sounds in the air made his blood race. “ _Now_ who’s a fucking tease?” he demanded breathlessly.

Humming thoughtfully, he agreed with that enough to give him both fingers, knuckle-deep in one stroke. Dorian jerked, arching off the pillow in a great curve, a sharp _Ah_ leaving his throat. “Yes, _fuck_ ,” he gritted out, his low voice pushing a startled breath from the Fereldan man’s gut as his hips rutted forward into the bed. Pleased with himself, Cullen reached up and grabbed his hair as he’d been encouraged before, wrapping long silky strands around his fingers, and Dorian’s head hung its weight against that grip, but his spine curved back eagerly. Cullen gave him a sharp pull with the next thrust in. An incoherent sound broken with pleasure broke from his lips. His neck and shoulders went boneless with the next hard pull.

Sharp breaths were punctuated by unsteady gasps. Dorian’s body rocked lustily into his touch, riding his fingers as a small sound surged from his lips. Before long, however, he made a pained noise. “What is it?” he asked, concerned.

“My leg,” he said tightly. Cullen pulled out of him, watching all the muscles along his spine contract as he eased down onto his stomach again, sighing in irritation as he stretched the offending appendage. Cullen leaned forward over him, burying his face in the other man’s hair, hands snaking around his ribs. For a moment, he imagined just lying on him, rutting in the oil between those perfect globes, but he resisted.

The hitch in his breath began to subside, and his fingers picked at the pillow he’d been clutching, moodily. Sensing that his thoughts might be complex, Cullen debated his options and at last, used the leverage of hands beneath his torso to roll him over. He left a fan of black silk across the pillow, and seemed surprised when he came to face the Fereldan man. A spark of self-consciousness hid in his gray eyes.

“Are you in pain?” he inquired cautiously, lowering himself carefully onto his hip at the mage’s side, trying and failing not to nudge his hip with his erection. He bent his elbow, propping his face on the inside of his forearm, and held his gaze.

“Not much; mostly stiff. I know the warning signs,” he assured, his eyes moving over Cullen’s bare shoulders and chest with continuing interest. One hand rubbed up his arm. Cullen found himself following suit, hand stroking Dorian’s thigh, moving up to encircle the erect flesh he’d yet to be allowed to touch. His cock was shaped perfectly, generously sized to his form, and damp with lingering arousal, the head flushed still. He curled his fingers around the shaft firmly, and dragged them upward in a gentle, firm slide, grinding the tip gently into his open palm how he himself liked, and then pushing his hand back down again, earning a soft groan.

Watching his face under heavy lids, Dorian’s gaze seemed fully engaged on him, along with the mind behind it, just as much as his body was. Suddenly, he realized that the other man hadn’t really believed they would reach even this point; hadn’t thought Cullen would be able to touch him, to look at him so freely. He felt a flicker of a smile on the scarred corner of his lip, and then allowed his eyes to wander boldly again. The sight of his left leg brought him up short.

Shaped more or less as it should be, it was clear without clothing that the knee and lower thigh had been heavily damaged. Silver-red healed scars showed where the potions and healers had tried to restore the limb into a semblance of working order, but it was clear he’d almost lost it that day. He had to wonder if his other self had wept over it during his recovery, given for his own life as it was.

“Not pretty,” he commented, seeing where the attention had shifted. His voice was tight.

“Beautiful. _All_ of you,” He contested, then leaned forward and caught his mouth. Opening to him easily, Dorian’s fingers traced up his shoulder, up his neck, and his fingernails dragged over his scalp. As he did, Cullen leaned half over him, tongue pushing into his mouth, wanting to taste him again. Hand scooping up the injured thigh, he slid his palm down, and lifted his hip, spreading him open.

More oil, and his fingers slid into the lovely man who clung to his mouth, moans swallowed between them. Dorian’s lips unlocked just enough to mouth his name with a whisper. _I need you._ His fingers pistoned easily into him, hot and slick, obeying without question when the dark-skinned man demanded a third finger, sighing. “Turn your hand, palm up,” he said, whisper muffled into his jaw. “Yes, curl your fingers there, just a - _ohh_ ,” he moaned loudly, body clenching around him. “ _Fuck_ , yes, please do it a-” he cut himself off with another cry when the Commander duplicated the action.

His hips rocked into the touch as Cullen thoroughly applied his fingers to that spot that made him cry out so sharply. His arm around Cullen’s shoulder shook, lips wandering against his chin, begging with a soft chanted _please_. He was leaking onto his own stomach, his hips rolling wildly into the touch. Each whimper and moan seemed to tug at him, driving him to stoke the fires higher in his partner.

“ _Cullen_ ,” he moaned, letting his lips be caught again. He gathered the mage’s dark-haired head in the palm of his free hand and crashed them together, lips and teeth and tongues that just didn’t know when to quit. The bitterness on his tongue from when he had the Commander in his mouth earlier was intriguing, rather than offputting, and Dorian’s arms slipped, fingernails raking down his back. He pulled back from another bruising kiss and whispered, “You could make me come just like this,” he breathed in heavily as Cullen drew his fingers out, then pushed back in again. “... if you wanted,” he moaned, clutching him close.

It would look incredible, watching him come undone on just his fingertips. He wanted to see it, wanted to feel everything. “No,” he said, and swallowed hard, rolling onto him and removing his fingers. Dorian’s panting continued a moment longer, and he pulled Cullen down to a kiss, arching up from the bed against him when their damp, hardened cocks met between their bodies.

“Anything,” he said softly, rocking back into the answering thrust.

Cullen could draw an educated conclusion at this point, and decided to take the vague invitation he had been issued earlier. He lifted the beautiful brown thighs up around his hips and positioned himself, his tip nudging at his softened entrance, and stopped, eyes seeking his, seeing surprise and eagerness in equal measure. A breathless nod repeated the invitation, and he licked his lips, his gut a mess of tight nerves as he set his own knees into the bed and _pushed_ slowly.

Dorian instinctively made it easier, opening, spreading himself like a welcome banquet, _fucking beautiful_ \- he moaned softly in the back of his throat as the tip sank inside slowly. Through lidded eyes, he watched the duskier man’s hands pull his knees up, a soft keening sound deep in his throat as he threw his head back onto the pillow. The flames inside him, already simmering low while he had fingered the other man open, brightened into a full conflagration as he rocked himself back and then forward into him deeper, his body a searingly intense sheath.

Oil appeared in his hand, and he pulled back enough to follow the unspoken directive, soaking them both before trying to enter him again. Oh, this time Dorian took him fully in a lovely tight glide, tearing a noise from his throat. Then he was sheathed deep inside, all the way to the base, _fuck;_ Dorian’s mouth was at his temples and dotting his lips and brushing over his nose, slow and sugared as honey, and twice as hot, his eyes snapping silver fire and holding him in place.

 _Maker_. Cullen had to adjust, to breathe - the other man's body held him so hard, boiling hot inside, the oil making him slide smoothly when he drew his hips back far too soon, and pushed slowly, deep into him again. Dorian groaned against his lips, mouthing something indecent at him, like _fill me please_ , and Cullen fought not to lose his head and embarrass himself right then, breath heavy beneath the thrumming in his ears. Surprise arced through him when Dorian leaned his head down and bit him, hard on the shoulder. The feel of his teeth cleared away some of the fog in his head, though it still called a battle-lust kind of adrenaline into him - a different kind of burn.

But he was back under some control, and he took a deep, steadying breath. Rising higher over him, he aimed for the spot inside his body he’d been torturing mercilessly just minutes ago, and wondered if he could - _oh yes_. His first, firm thrust into him made Dorian’s head fall straight back onto the pillow, neck bared as he groaned out a curse. Yes, that was the spot exactly. In this position, he couldn’t move much to help, though his hips did their level best, pushing against Cullen and his back against the bed. His right hand slid down the Commander’s sweat-slicked chest limply as he laid back.

Adjusting his hold, Cullen lifted him further, and his free hand wandered, smoothing up his thigh, across his clavicle, weighing him down as the mage threw his left arm back over his head, bicep and pectoral stretching, abs flexing. His body was ideal - incredible - thighs tightening around him as Cullen's hips pulled back and snapped into him.

Affection dropped mostly away, passion coming to the fore as their bodies met in the middle. Dorian’s weight had shifted enough that he was able to roll his hips, to turn the fullest part of the thrust into a grind, pushing just that touch deeper before each parting. Sweat sheened on their skin in the cold air, and he bottomed out inside of him again and again. Each push was so silky and taut around him, he felt like he was flying, heart drumming in his chest and throbbing in the cock he was burying inside of the mage.

Breathing in counterpoint to him, Dorian gazed up at him intently, his long lashes veiling his eyes. Suddenly he squeezed tightly, trapping Cullen against him, biting his lip as he held him still with just his legs, a flirtatious look aimed at him. He was reminded that no matter how incredible he felt, he wasn’t doing this alone. He stilled, thumbs tracing circles over the sharp bones of his hips, awaiting his pleasure with a flicker of a smile and a raised eyebrow.

Somehow the thighs gripping his hips sort of shimmied up him, one at a time, changing the angle just slightly, and he reached up a hand toward him. Cullen took it, releasing his hip, and answered the same gesture with his other hand. When he had both hands, the dark-skinned man pulled with his whole weight, arching as he ground them deeper to one another. With a pull, he curled up far enough to kiss his knuckles, and then dropped back again, dragging himself up and grinding once more, his head tipping back on the pillow again.

Taking his cue, Cullen released his hands, leaning forward and resting one against the bed, pulling almost all the way out of him before pushing himself in deep again, all the way to the root, a slow and delicious slide that left him exhaling hard against the corner of his jaw. Dorian seemed perfectly fine with being bent practically in half, and he meant to be impressed by it later. They set a pace that was slower, more gradual, but just as passionate, taking and giving, and he felt the knot of heat in the base of his belly growing brighter and warmer before spilling through his body.

He stole a kiss, he trailed a lick down Dorian’s throat, in between thrusts, their bodies swaying faster together despite their moderation. Catching his eyes, the Tevinter man pressed a hand against his own throat, then trailed it down his own chest, palm wide. Cullen watched him do it, leaning back a little to see as he slid down his belly and took hold of his cock. His fist pumped slowly, with the rhythm of their movements, and he watched silver eyes slip closed, milky-clear fluid dripping over his knuckles as he leaked eagerly.

“Just like this?” Cullen asked tightly, breathless.

“Yes, so close,” was the whisper. “Come inside,” he added, like he needed another little spark of flame in his gut. It wasn’t exactly what he was asking, but he’d never wanted to obey an order so thoroughly in his life. Dorian curled tighter on the bed, licking his lips and parting them, and he knew that it meant he wanted to be kissed. He lowered himself despite the difficult angle, tongue tracing his lips. Dorian met his tongue in mid-air, and drew him in, releasing him shortly after when Cullen’s hand curled around the one on his cock, taking over, jerking him with tight, short movements.

Dorian put a knuckle between his teeth when the sounds of pleasure he was making became high-pitched and wanting, and his hips swayed between the touch and the impalement, his muscles seizing and tightening slowly as he reached his peak. He reached out hastily, fingers gripping into the Commander’s hair. Choking out his name and a long _ohh_ , Dorian came with a full-body shudder, spilling hot fluid over his hand and spurting onto his own chest, glistening in the golden-colored magelight.

As he did, his body clenched and spasmed inside, and Cullen’s head dropped, gritting his teeth. “Dorian,” he murmured back, a name he’d never before associated with such pleasure, so that it was another mild shock to his senses. His hips snapped frantically, fucking him through his orgasm, watching his back arch against the bed, his breath and voice stolen by the sharp pleasure.

When the mage finally dragged in a long, ragged breath, he forced himself to stop, even though he was so close he could almost taste the edge of his own release. Dorian caught at his arms, chest heaving. “Keep going,” he gasped. “Come for me, darling,” he urged, his voice coaxing and melodically seductive in the dim room.

Driving into him eagerly, he strove for completion, warming under the encouraging words Dorian poured forth into his ears. Things like _magnificent_ and _gorgeous_ , and _love_. Fingers tightening around the back of his neck, Dorian dragged him down for another kiss, tongue entering his mouth firmly, and Cullen moaned long and low around it, something breaking deep inside as he felt himself plunge over the precipice, limbs trembling as he spent hard, pressed balls-deep into the other man’s body.

Gasping in the circle of his arms, Cullen lowered himself onto his forearm shakily. He could hardly even see for a long time, blinking away spots in his vision, letting Dorian press his hair back from his face, more kisses peppered over his brow, the bridge of his nose, even his eyelids. Fingers shaking, laid behind his ear as he whispered how amazing it had been, kissing the scarred corner of his lips. There was something strangled in the sound of his voice.

Raising his hands at last, he cradled the mage’s sharp jaw and framed his cheekbones, feeling tears run back into his hair to mix into the sweat. He was softening, and slipped out of him. Unwinding their bodies, he crawled up a little farther, and tucked Dorian’s forehead into the crook of his neck, thumbs sweeping away errant tears as the man next to him broke down, sobbing silently at first against his throat.

He allowed the Commander to pull him in closer, wearily, and his sobs intensified, racking his frame, shoulders and chest jerking. His gasping breaths sounded painful, like he was being stabbed in the lungs with each inhale, whole body shaking each time. Holding him as he came apart, Cullen asked him no questions, and made no demands.

Instead he held him steady, resting on his side and sharing a pillow, and let him cry, their embrace overwarm, sticky and awkward. A high croak that sounded like his name again, but cut off by a gasp. His sobs were intense, shuddering wails, like a team of horses off the rein; he was being torn asunder, and each unmoderated cry reminded Cullen of the source of his sorrow.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, pressing his lips to the former _altus_ ’ forehead. “You don’t have to be alright, with me,” he promised, though he didn’t know if his words were welcomed. “Right now, you can just be sad, and - and angry, if you want.” Arms wound around him, sweaty and desperate, and he let his palm press to the back of his shoulder blade. Lowering his mouth, he kissed the flushed skin there on the curve of his shoulder, on the line of his collarbone.

The worst of it had passed, perhaps, though he was still sobbing openly - sounds he had never heard wracked out of his friend’s body before, vulnerable little breaths, shaky curled fingers against his skin, arms and shoulders hard and tense. _Of course,_ he berated himself. He wasn’t ignorant enough not to know what memories being with him must have evoked.

“I shouldn’t have,” he mouthed, low near Dorian’s ear. “I should have thought - of course you must… I’m so sorry,” he said. He felt another sob captured deep in the Tevinter man’s chest, held until he was fit to burst, trying his best not to make another sound. “I never meant to hurt you, but… that,” he breathed out, a full breath from his gut. “That was wonderful,” he admitted. “...Thank you.”

A calculated risk. However, it was one that paid off. He’d sat across the chessboard from Dorian Pavus enough times to dare. The breath was exhaled, but slow and shaky, sobs tapering off. A few slow breaths, a sniffle and a swallow, and he turned his head upward, to kiss him on the cheek, moustache brushing his chin. He was quieter, afterward, but not in a way that indicated he was angry with his present company, or ashamed. But he was still raw, and his emotions were bruised. So he said nothing more, sensing that the mage would be more solicitous of Cullen’s own feelings when he could.

He grew tired; the magelight flickered out, the candles dimmed but didn’t go out, reduced to just their non-magical flames. “Let’s get you under the covers before you freeze through your thin northern skin,” he offered, nudging his temple in a way that earned a tired grunt. He rose enough to grab a rag and pour some water from the pitcher, wiping himself clean and then rinsing it, bringing it over to Dorian and helping him wipe clean of sweat and other fluids.

Pulling the covers loose and setting the oil aside, he half lifted, and half dragged the mage under the covers, tucking him in and climbing in next to him. The heat of his body was soothing and welcome, and he curled into the space between Cullen's arm and his ribs like he was formed to it. 

Having him there curled heavily into his body felt frighteningly substantial. Cullen found his thoughts arrested at the feel of that long, elegant body, hot and sharp, skin smooth against him. Dorian’s hand lay, half-curled, against his chest, fingers twitching as though resisting the urge to pet over the hair on his chest. It was a moment full of relaxed warmth and half-realized thoughts, and he idly traced the shape of the former _altus_ ’ hand, and his narrow wrist, pushing away all of the vague worries that tried to build themselves into piles in the back of his head. He dropped off to sleep quicker than he thought he could.

In the morning, the first thing he saw when he got out of bed - way later than he should be - was that some unknown party had thoughtfully folded all of the clothing they’d left littering the office, and slipped it up just over the edge of his ladder, with Dorian’s boots and coat, and his armor. Groaning in dismay, he dropped his head back onto the pillow. _Well, that secret’s out_.

Dorian’s back was to him, hogging the majority of the covers bunched under his chin, and his rounded shoulders were bare, as well as his back. He smiled helplessly and traced a fingertip through patches of warm golden sun on his dusky skin, making him shiver in his sleep. Leaving a kiss, he rose to meet the day and all its new rumors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translator's notes:  
> (Because Cullen's big sisters are all so worried about him, y'all)
> 
>  _"Je ne suis pas stupide, bien sûr, je sais que ce n’est pas mon mari."_ \- "I'm not stupid, of course I know he's not my husband."
> 
>  _“Je ne serais jamais venu ici exprès, vous savez.”_ \- "I would never have come here on purpose, you know."


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dorian and Alexius explain the nature of paradox, and The Iron Bull is a busy, busy bee, greasing the gears.
> 
> _“Had to get yourself besotted with a Maker-damned_ altus _, you big lug. Can’t make our lives any easier, like bedding a rich Orlesian heiress with cute sisters, could you,” Krem bitched good-naturedly, and Bull laughed to himself._
> 
> _“Nah, you know how it is,” he replied genially. “It had to be him.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The date of this chapter is 30 Wintermarch 9:44. Quick reminder in the Thedosian calendar, the annum of Wintersend comes at the beginning of Guardian, the second month.
> 
> Technobabble engine engaged! Full speed ahead, Captain! So much shop talk this chapter.

Alexius had been invited to attend Junou’s next inner circle breakfast. Bull listened patiently along with the others as he and Dorian did a quick demonstration of the structure of the rift singularity, comparing it to the formation of crystals, or rock candy for Sera’s benefit. Nothing for it but for Dorian to promise he’d help her make rock candy later.

“The problem, of course,” he went on with a troubled mien, “...is that I cannot initiate the rift closure until I am on the side to which I shall remain. Currently,” he went on with a cursory glance at Alexius, who nodded, “our theory is that it may not be possible for me to occupy the same space as your own version of Dorian _Pavus_ ,” he explained, with a slight emphasis on the surname.

“...Wot?” Sera demanded, head tilting.

Cullen’s fingers drummed lightly on the table. Cassandra and Rainier remained stoic, but Vivienne, Fiona, and Leliana remained as intent as the Inquisitor herself. Bull watched her fingers lace, narrow blue gaze levelling across the table at them. “Let me get this right,” she asked slowly. “What you’re saying is that you think that the reason you are here is not because you used the rift - but because the rift took Dorian from us? And what, _exchanged_ you for him?”

He opened his mouth and then paused, thinking. Alexius cleared his throat and stepped in. “Inquisitor Adaar, if I may,” he interjected. She nodded once, horn caps flickering in the light as she turned to him. “What he is saying is that if the rift… latched onto our version of Dorian, as your own eyewitness reports suggest, then by virtue of the fact that he is leaving our world, there must be balance from elsewhere. It is _possible_ that someone without a counterpart in another - another _reality_ \- may be able to travel there and back without such an exchange in certain situations. But we don’t think that that is the case here. We believe a connection must be made first.”

Clearing his throat, the former _altus_ took over again. “With all due respect, Inquisitor, we believe it’s possible that the attempt to seal the breach with the Anchor became the trigger for the exchange. He put himself between the Anchor - yourself - and the rift, whilst simultaneously holding a connection to the rift thanks to the fact that it was created by his alternate self - er, me, that is. It is not a far stretch to assume that, in lieu of the Anchor connection, it reached for him instead.”

“So you assert that you had little to do with the exchange itself?” Leliana challenged, her voice level but tone pointed, and the rest of the table glanced at her and back to him.

“I don’t deny involvement in the process, but I wasn’t speaking of my role in it,” he returned, his tone firm, but without the haughtiness they were accustomed to in him. “I had not initiated contact with the rift when I was drawn in. It is entirely possible that there were other versions of Skyhold in which this rift manifested; it’s possible others _did_ try to interfere with the rift. Indeed, some versions of the world may exist in which my father’s blood ritual succeeded and you were all denied my marvellous presence entirely.” One hand flipped negligently.

Alexius was troubled by the flippant declaration. “But he did not end up in any of those. Our best guess is that there was an even exchange between this world and Ser Rutherford’s world,” he waved a hand at the dark-haired mage next to him. Half the room’s eyes swivelled onto Cullen’s suddenly pink visage, because apparently some of their asshole friends hadn’t realized that they were full-on hitched in the land beyond. Bull snorted, ignoring Vivienne’s raised eyebrow while simultaneously accepting her offer of a teaspoon.

“ _Wot!_ ” Sera said again, spitting out the drink of water she’d been in the middle of, fortunately mostly back into her cup. “ _Commander Curly married Lord Fancy-britches?!_ ”

“Well, so much for the meeting,” Dorian sighed, and went back to his seat. “Have we any wine? I wish to crawl back off of the wagon.”

“Wine is not a _breakfast_ food, my dear,” Vivienne told him, sounding as unflappable as ever, though if Bull were any judge, she was soundly flapped behind that nervous flutter toward her collar.

Seriously, he gazed back at her. “Breakfast wine is a sacred Pavus family tradition.”

“Well, apparently you are no longer a Pavus,” she shot back smugly.

He scowled. “It comes from my Thalrassian side, and I’ve _never_ been one of those.”

Adaar had settled down Sera about as well as she could with a promise to tell her all about it later. Cullen didn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes, but Cassandra was boring holes into him from under her eyebrows, and he meekly met her gaze then blushed and looked away.

Valiantly, Alexius tried to move forward. “In the development of Time magic, Dorian and I postulated that certain reactions within the definition of the spell invocation were necessary additions, needed as countermeasures to resist the world’s natural aversion to paradox.”

“...Paradox?” Adaar asked, completely puzzled.

Dorian met her eyes forthrightly across the table. “Paradoxes do exist within the world, Inquisitor, though the world as a whole bends the laws of nature against them, as it can. Without the intervention of Time magic, or other thaumaturgical manipulation, they are exceptionally rare. An example would be the paradox Grand Enchanter Fiona was subject to in Val Royeaux,” he inclined his head to the older woman respectfully, earning a raised eyebrow. “However, certain unexplained situations have happened in this world independently of such interference, typically limited to a chance sighting of bizarre events, left uninvestigated due to sheer unimportance.”

“Can you give us an example of a paradox?” Cassandra asked suddenly from the far end of the table. Bull was impressed that she was willing to put forth an inquiry. As the upcoming Divine, however, it stood her in good stead to learn as much as she could about unusual magic in the world.

“Certainly,” Dorian said, and paused for thought. “There are versions of this story everywhere, typically passed along as supposed hauntings or sightings. One actually happened to me once in Asariel.” He cleared his throat. “Walking down a straight road toward Alexius’ home, I passed the same, rather distinctive, red-haired Elven servant three separate times within minutes, each time heading in the opposite direction. Before you ask,” he threw a testy look to Rainier, who had opened his mouth, “I was neither intoxicated, bespelled, or sleep-deprived.” 

Alexius snorted. “For the next three months after it happened, we exclusively studied the nature of _paradoxes_ in application to spellcasting, until Felix would simply get up and leave the room the instant either of us spoke the word.” Dorian laughed with him, then put a hand on his arm comfortingly. “But we have no explanation for that account, and after a great deal… _less circumstantial_ study, we concluded that most paradoxes remain unexplained and unidentified.”

“Suffice to say, paradoxes which occur naturally are dismissed as lies, hoaxes, deja vu, or drunkenness. They are explained away with faulty conclusions or dismissed as propaganda or even ghost stories.” Dorian tilted his head, licking his lips. “It’s possible the human urge to _explain_ such things is part of the world’s protective mechanisms, in fact. Paradoxes can be defined by sightings, patterns, or similarities in things that should be unique and yet still echo other things - or shouldn’t exist, and yet do. Three conspicuously identical trees falling in the same direction in the forest; seeing the same stranger in multiple locations at once when it should be impossible for them to be there - the list goes on. Usually you get the chills, tell someone how weird it is, get made fun of,” he shot a look at his former mentor, “and move on.”

Unexpectedly, a whisper from the other end of the table intruded. “Impossible things that shouldn’t be, checking and rechecking your eyes - limitations written into the margins of the world’s boundaries, beyond where human eyes can pry,” Cole mused aloud, stacking sausage patties atop a mountain of fresh fruit, drizzled in syrup. “How can I be here? I didn’t trigger the spell. If I’ve failed before I’ve even begun, I can never save him,” he went on. “Or did it work? Is he waiting for me? _Mea Bellator_ \- Maker forgive my hubris.”

Swallowing hard, Dorian chose to ignore Cole’s outburst. “I submit that, because Grand Enchanter Fiona’s paradox was limited in scope - one version of her was isolated in time, and the two versions of her which existed simultaneously never interacted, it was tolerated, in a manner of speaking, despite the fact that Alexius’ spellcasting failed the task of correcting for it. In any system, including spellwork, there must be a certain amount of flexibility, or the entire system will eventually shatter. Besides,” he glanced at the silent Elven woman again. “Fiona _belongs_ in this world. ”

Alexius’ eyes had closed once the recounting of his own failures had begun, though he did his utmost to continue to appear composed, Bull noticed, sipping his tea slowly. He took a dim view of the man - he would never again be the mentor his _Kadan_ \- as well as his counterpart - had so loved. People couldn’t un-become a thing, even if you chose to overlook it. Still, he couldn’t find it in himself to find the man a threat any longer. “Dorian Rutherford, on the other hand, does _not_ belong in this world, and I believe that the world is constructed in such a way - or with such a fail-safe - as to write him out of it, should he generate sufficient paradox in our world.”

The gravel-voiced man opened his eyes, looking back to the Inquisitor, after sweeping his gaze over the table. “In this instance, however, there was an alternative - part for part, he was biologically identical to Dorian _Pavus_. The circumstances of their birth and cultivation mirrored one another’s development, up to a point. They were essentially the same person. We speculate there is an intangible threshold of similarity to which they qualify for a paradox aversion exchange.”

Dorian lifted an eyebrow at him in a manner expressive of a shrug, and he went on. “Aside from the risk of major paradox, the other issue present related to the fact that spellcasting creates a buildup of energy, and that energy needed to be channelled, or risk destructive, even explosive complications. An even exchange between the two served the purpose of funnelling the energy of spellcasting attached to the rift, plus the influence of the Anchor, in a non-destructive way, while still maintaining the status quo between the two worlds, and simultaneously avoiding paradox.”

Sera looked at her lover plaintively. “I din’t get any of that.”

Junou smiled fondly at her, just a touch of mirth. “It’s like a spring-loaded pressure plate in a treasure room,” she explained, and Sera’s eyes glinted in recognition. “If you take the treasure, you gotta make sure you’re putting something of equivalent weight on the pressure plate, or you’ll set off the trap.”

“So Sparklepants is a trap,” she concluded gleefully.

“If anything, I’m the treasure,” he groused, and Cullen stifled a quiet chuckle in the palm of his hand, turning his face away from the table rather than meet the humor in the mage’s eye. Looking down, Bull found that the nice teaspoon Vivienne had handed him was now warped rather dramatically in his large fingers, and reluctantly set himself to straightening it out.

Clearly, there was more to their situation than there had been a few days ago. It was apparent to the _Tal-Vashoth_ that the relationship between the two of them was no longer a fully disinterested one, and likely no longer platonic as well, if the sneaky glances they were trying not to give one another were anything to judge by. And, as much as he had encouraged their freedom to pursue the connection, he found that he wasn’t impartial to the development, after all. Noticing it made him feel a little sick. Realizing his own jealousy just made it worse.

Stewing, he stabbed a stack of sausage patties and took a bite of the stack. Cole watched him curiously. “He doesn’t have the key to the door, The Iron Bull,” he explained quietly. Dorian glanced over at him, eyebrows knit in question. “Chess and Go are played with different rulebooks,” he elaborated. “Lions and Bulls hunt differently.”

“Not right now, Cole,” he muttered.

“There’s one piece of information in all this that’s been eluding me,” Adaar said, blinking her cobalt-lined eyes as she tilted her head toward Dorian. “We established that Magister Alexius’ use of Time magic failed because there is an upper limit to the length of time one can travel back. That limit is defined by the creation of the rift being used to bind the spell.”

“That’s correct,” Alexius answered for him, when Dorian remained grimly silent and the _Vashoth_ woman’s eyes slid over to meet those of his former mentor. “Dorian should not have been able to travel farther back in time than the creation of the rift.” It was an agreement, but lightly spoken, and worded in a way to leave room for loopholes, Bull thought. _Qualifiers_.

She didn’t plan on giving the former _altus_ any reprieve, however, and her blue eyes narrowed back onto the younger Tevinter mage. “So please explain to me how you intended to travel back in time - how long was it, Dorian?” she asked him directly, her voice implacable but not discourteous.

“Six months,” he admitted, only just forcing himself above a whisper. Cullen looked across the table at him, his face drawn taut and stony in concern, but wordless. The Commander’s brows knit as though he hadn’t realized the time frame himself - or hadn’t put it in context, maybe, more likely.

Junou blinked her eyes wide, and then looked sad. “Six months,” she echoed. Bull hadn’t chosen to follow an idiot. She knew what that portion of time represented to the stiff-shouldered mage on the opposite side of the table. “How did you intend to travel six months using a rift that hadn’t even been open for six _days_?”

A long, interested quiet governed the table. Leliana’s eyes were fixed on him. Josephine looked politely attentive, as she would be at any social function, but it was unclear how deep her understanding of thaumaturgical jargon extended. Cassandra and Rainier looked like the words _blood magic_ were somewhere in the back of their throats, or some other accusation. Vivienne and Fiona were intensely interested in the answer, while Sera and Cole were completely uninterested, and in fact, Sera flicked a strawberry across the table to knock down part of Cole’s mountain of food. Cullen and Alexius knew enough to mentally brace themselves.

“I…” he swallowed, and brought his chin up. “I created a temporal displacement spell, and I applied it to the rift,” he admitted. “In layman’s terms, as far as the rift is concerned, it should have been open for whatever length of time I chose for it to believe it was open. This - this is the reason why Dagna noted that there was an eighteen-hour time dilation effect on the rift cycles,” he explained. “The spell wasn’t complete when the exchange took place,” he admitted, “...but in truth, now that I have had the opportunity to examine the problem at length with Alexius’ help, I… do not know if it could have been successful or not.” The _Tal-Vashoth_ could sense what it cost him to admit that, and to do so publicly.

“The theory was sound, based on the information we currently know about Time magic,” Alexius offered into the long stretch of quiet as each member of the inner circle examined this new disclosure. Whether it was meant to reassure their dining companions or comfort Dorian was unclear, but the mask of cool reserve on the younger man’s face was all _altus_. “However, we have pioneered a dangerous new field of study, and much of what we think we know - what we _assume_ \- about both Time magic and the nature of paradox, is at least partially based on conjecture, at this point.”

Taking a deep breath in, Adaar finally broke the spell of silence with a sigh. Cassandra looked completely flabbergasted, and Vivienne and Fiona were both staring at Dorian with something approaching alarmed respect. “Brilliant,” Junou declared at last. Rainier and Sera both looked at her as though she were mad, and Leliana’s expression cooled. “Dorian, I mean it. You are a brilliant theorist, and an extremely talented mage,” she allowed. “Not that your ego ever needed a stroke, but it’s possible that you may be capable of feats that have not been envisioned since the fall of Arlathan.”

Surprise flashed in his face, and wariness.

“...You’re also an extremely dangerous man right now,” she declared stoically. “You were willing to rewrite the rules of the entire world - to play Maker - and damn all the cost, to save only one man. Not that any number of lives would tip the balance of that scale, but you did it for a selfish reason; out of grief. I care for you and respect you, but if it were in my purview, I would see you punished for it.”

Dorian looked down at his picked-over plate, and the _Tal-Vashoth_ could see that, despite the lack of familiarity between himself and the Inquisitor, the words did injure his pride greatly. Unable to resist the urge to comfort, Bull reached over beneath the table, and rested a hand on his good leg, squeezing gently. He closed his eyes for a long moment, eyelashes fluttering as though fighting his emotions.

“He was worth it,” he whispered.

“I’m certain he was,” she said softly, keen ears catching the faint words. “You may not be my Dorian, but I don’t think anyone in this room wants to see you go down such a hazardous path - dangerous both in terms of what it may cost you, and in terms of the threat you would become to the world itself, if you don’t come back to _sense_ ,” she added, a faint hint of desperate exasperation in her words. 

Standing quietly, Cullen slipped out of his seat, and put his back to the room. Crossing his arms, he drifted away from the War Table, and stood staring out of the panoramic northern window, hip parked against the edge of the frame. It was the first time The Iron Bull had seen their relentless Commander look so fragile in the bright morning light.

“You currently represent the most terrifying dangers of magic without oversight, as I’m sure Madame Vivienne will tell you at great length if you give her even the slightest opportunity,” she added with an ironic twist of her eyebrows, ignoring Vivienne’s haughty, cultured huff. “However, I have to leave your fate in the hands of your own Inquisitor, this time. I need you working to fix this problem.”

“Of course,” he replied, his voice rough. “I know you want your own Dorian back, and even _I_ am incapable of enough self-loathing to wish my reality upon him. You have my word, if you’ll take it, that I want no more than to put this to rights. And… I don’t think I can go through this again,” his eyes climbed reluctantly to Cullen’s profile, then back sharply to the Inquisitor’s gaze. “I won’t make any trouble for you, my lady.”

“Call me Junou already, you inconvenient fop,” she said fondly, if disgusted.

“Of course, Inquisitor,” he agreed and blithely disregarded the request at once. Bull took his hand back, feeling Dorian’s fingertips brush over the back of his knuckles briefly as he did so. “I’m currently attempting to investigate ways to prompt the exchange. I’m aware that we can simply attempt the same sequence of events again, but I don’t wish to exhaust you by calling repeatedly upon the powers of the Anchor in some insane trial-and-error. We want to be sure we can guarantee you receive the right magnificently talented mage, and not just _any_ old magnificently talented mage, if you catch my meaning,” he tried to offer up his old humor, prompting her amused grin.

“Don’t forget to call on Dagna as well. I’m not sure the enchantment exists that can aid in this, but if anyone has a better working perspective on magic and enchantment than she does, then I’ll be damned.” There wasn’t much else to discuss, though Adaar made a show of asking Leliana, Cullen, and Josephine for Inquisition updates, and then throwing the floor open to anyone else who wanted to add anything.

Alexius squeezed Dorian’s shoulder with one hand, earning a nod, and then went out to meet his escort. Their friends trickled away gradually, and Dorian spoke up to the _Vashoth_ woman just as she was about to excuse herself. “What are your plans for Alexius, after this?” he asked, and she blinked at him, parking her hip against the edge of the table, eyeing him speculatively. “From what I hear, I’m not sure your own Dorian would ask. Call me sentimental, but… I see too much of myself in him, these days.”

“I’ll think about it,” she promised, then turned to go. Her eyes caught Bull’s, and then slid to Dorian subtly. He gave her a relaxed blink in lieu of a nod.

“Come on, ‘Vint,” he rumbled at last, grabbing Dorian’s staff and reaching to lift him by the elbow. “Don’t think I didn’t see you only took about three bites. You’ve gotta stop ignoring or giving people your food,” he scolded. The mage sputtered something like the start of a defense, but glanced only at Cullen and then followed him out.

“Suppose he’s afraid of me now?” he asked, and Bull didn’t bother to look at him. “Not that it matters, I suppose,” he concluded sourly.

_He probably should be, but I doubt it_. He didn’t bother to say so, just holding the door to get him out of Josephine’s office. “Was he scared of you last night?” he asked, ushering him through the Great Hall and out toward the garden.

“What do you -” sounding flustered, Dorian waited until they were out of earshot of so many nobles to continue. “ _Bull_ ,” he chastised.

“I just mean, nothing’s changed. Don’t underestimate his intelligence,” he added sagely. “Come on, we’re going to play chess,” he decided, and urged the mage toward the veranda where he and the Commander typically played.

“Oh, that seems a bit unfair,” he replied. “I’ve never had the chance to play against you.”

“That’s okay. My _Kadan_ and I don’t really play either.” He caught a series of sharp, dark looks aimed at Dorian from the Chantry sisters as they crossed the garden, and considered the source thoughtfully. “Got a question for you,” he began at last, as they cleared snow from the chairs and sat. “So, you’ve got this theory about how there are all these versions of our world, right?”

“Well, granted,” Dorian eased himself down, holding out a hand to magic off some of the snow piled onto the table into steam, “...I am a bit biased, trying to figure out how I have come to be in such a strange, distorted version of my own world. But, I know of little else to explain it, short of being trapped in the Fade.”

“Right…” Bull began. “But here’s the thing. You Andrastians…”

“You know we don’t call ourselves that in Tevinter, right?”

“You believe in _souls_ , right?” he pressed. “So, lotta people are gonna have questions. Like, if there are versions of every one of us, how does that work?” He asked, picking frigid game pieces out of the drawer built into the table. “Do people on both sides - say you and my _Kadan_ \- share a soul? And wouldn’t that make you the exact same person? Or, do you have different, unique souls, which makes you completely distinct? If so, then isn’t it creepy to think of having exact replicas out there who aren’t _really_ you?”

“ _Bull_ ,” Dorian interrupted, exasperated. “I don’t know, okay? I’m not a theologian. In this scenario, I’m at best a magical researcher.” He helped set up the game pieces. “Why did I follow you out here? It’s too bloody _cold_ ,” he complained.

“Oh, I thought you were a genuine authentic Fereldan now,” he teased, smirking.

“You gain citizenship by marriage, not _ancestry_ ,” he scathed back. “And I honestly don’t know the answer to your question. What would the Qun have said?”

He paused, rubbing a thumbnail and fingernail together. “Dunno,” he admitted, growling. “Probably have denied it until they couldn’t anymore, then dreamed up some scenario to explain it. For most of the _Beresaad_ and the _Antaam_ , their souls are their weapons.”

“But not for the Priesthood? The… _Ben-Hassrath_?” Dorian asked, gaze narrowing sharply on him. Shaking his head, Bull nudged a piece on the board forward with one finger. “Does that not strike you as just the least little bit contradictory? After all, only your Tamassrans’ word decides where each child ends up, correct? What if they can’t figure out where your soul is located?”

“Yeah, but… Tamassrans are highly revered under the Qun.”

“Infallible, are they?”

“It’s not that; people do change during their lives. Not much, usually, but some,” he admitted. He sighed as Dorian reached out fingers pale in his half-gloves to move a pawn. “It… _is_ easier to see the contradictions from the outside,” he acknowledged.

“As with any cult,” Dorian allowed magnanimously. “Even Andrastianism.”

“So what, just ‘ _fuck the Maker’_ now?” Bull asked him, eyeing the tension on his face curiously. His countenance tightened, but the _Tal-Vashoth_ neither retracted the question nor pushed.

“It’s not that,” Dorian sighed. “I just… I can’t, anymore,” he uttered quietly, his words falling limply between them, his finger toying with a spire piece. “You must know what your lover has lived through. You must know what it’s like to look at everyone else around you and feel like you were made wrongly,” he implored. The words poured forth slowly, like a cascade of pebbles slowly overflowing between clumsy fingers.

Knowing the intensity with which his mind worked, The Iron Bull employed silence, his most formidable tool against Dorian. “Cullen made me feel like I was good enough, even with all my flaws. I can’t speak for your _Kadan_ , but no one else has ever made _me_ feel like…” he watched Bull move a knight piece. “Like there wasn’t some crippling flaw in me, or something missing that would have made me acceptable. For instance, if I only liked women. If I was only content with the corruption I witnessed around me. If I were a more powerful mage - not a mage at all - less contentious, less proud, _more_ proud… I was being torn apart. I thought when I left Tevinter, I would be alone, but at least I would be free,” he said, his cheek jerking just slightly as though a tired smile fought to emerge.

“Then what?” he asked quietly. Dorian pushed another pawn forward, distractedly.

“Then I…” he shrugged. “He was everything I wasn’t, don’t you think?” He burrowed his hand into the folds of his coat, arms crossed over his chest. “I liked - _we_ liked being near each other well enough; he asked nothing of me, and tolerated even my more difficult traits. Eventually I realized he had come to see right through me, but never called me on it; he let me act like an arse if it’s what made me feel safe, even if it was inconvenient. He’s very - he _was_ very steady. It took so little to make him happy, and I…”

The mage bit his lip, and it looked for a minute as though he were going to lose his composure. “You know, I don’t know that I’d ever actually made anyone happy before him? My parents were _proud_ when I was small and agreeable, perhaps, but I was not capable of bringing them happiness like I apparently did to Cullen. I didn’t have to do anything difficult or special. He was content, and I thought it was so nice to see him smile for once that I wanted to keep making him happy.” He took a shaky breath. “If a man like that, who helped people, _saved_ people, deserves to die just when he finally reached a point in his life he had been striving for - when he was _happy_ , after so long - then… then what is the fucking Maker even _for_? Who wants a Maker who allows that?”

After a few deep, cold breaths, he shook his head, saying that he wasn’t telling it right, the heat fading from his voice. Even so, Bull thought it said something about the relationship as much as either of the men involved in it.

“Does he… make you happy?” the mage asked him, taking his next turn, withdrawing his hand just enough. He couldn’t answer it in words, but Dorian didn’t need him to. “If he does, have you told him, unambiguously?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I guess I’d better make sure, when he gets back.”

“Guess you should,” he agreed, with a faint smile. “Doesn’t sound like it’s going to be easy for you,” he mused. “Maybe it’s just my unique perspective, but… I feel like I can comment on the fact that, as convinced as he is that Tevinter is worth saving, my younger self - so much like your current Dorian - could hardly find a single _altus_ worth the time of day. Instead he keeps falling for forbidden men.”

“Well,” he couldn’t help but smirk. “He’s inclined to do the forbidden.”

Eyes narrowing on his own with an answering grin, he remarked, “ _Clearly_.”

They played a few more moves before the mage’s shivering became too distracting. “Come on, let’s get you warmed up and fed,” he said, pushing all the pieces into the drawer. “You’re right, it’s too cold for a ‘Vint ex-pat out here - it’s only Wintersend tomorrow.”

“ _What?_ ” Dorian demanded, eyes widened as though he’d just been punched.

“Uh,” Bull began, not sure what part of that had set him off. Then he realized Dorian was not listening to him; instead he was counting on his fingers, brows furrowed in confusion. He watched the mage go through all ten fingers and hesitate on the last two, then do it all again, his shoulders sinking. _The date_ , he realized. “It’s Wintersend tomorrow,” he repeated gently.

“S-so it is,” he replied, and stood, leg clearly stiff. Grabbing his staff, he rose and stepped away from the table. “There’s work to do, Bull,” he gathered himself as best he was able after a hard swallow. “I’ll have an early lunch brought,” he smiled tautly. “I will speak with you later.”

“Take care, Dorian,” he replied solemnly. He wasn’t invited into this grief, and he knew the prickly former _altus_ well enough to avoid the issue. Standing up, he pretended to tidy up the space of the last few pieces, watching the dark-haired man find his way into the tiny Chantry, back held so tightly upright that it trembled like wire as he shut the door behind him.

Disquieted, he left the garden, turning the problem over in his mind, going through the Great Hall. He went to the Undercroft, and interrupted Dagna mid-project. She had set up an extra table, littered with tools, parts, metallic casing sections, and various samples. Among them, he recognized a couple of stasis jars with samples of the broken rift crystals. “Hey Dagna. How’s it going?”

She greeted him with a smile, but it was tired and distracted by her standards, for all its friendliness. “Hey,” she greeted him easily. “It’s… a lot,” she said. “We mostly have a lot of theories and a few disjointed observations. If it weren’t for the fact that we have a new Dorian in town, I wouldn’t want to go near this thing,” she admitted. “I mean, I _would_ ,” she amended, “but not until a lot more study.”

“I guess I’m wondering about the whole _exchanging back_ part of the equation,” he admitted. “I mean, they were both near the rift, doing dangerous, magical bullshit at the time, right?” The mercenary peered over the Dwarven woman’s shoulder, earning a giggle from her at his phrasing. “How do you know when my _Kadan_ is doing dangerous magical bullshit on his end too?” he asked, crossing his arms and pretending to rest them on top of the Dwarf’s red hair.

“I was thinking about that!” She chirped, enthusiasm returning. “Trial and error is all well and good, but we could be at that, just missing each other, over and over again,” she pointed out, quite rightly. Bull nodded his heavy horns down at her thoughtfully as she craned her head up in his direction beneath his elbows. “But, the rift was created through Dorian’s magic! Of course it will react differently when he’s interacting with it, right?”

“I mean, it makes sense, I think?” he mused. “I’m no _arvaarad_ , so I defer to you.”

“So,” she laid both hands on a piece of casing she was working on. He leaned away from her so that she could move more freely. “I’m working on _this_.” She pulled the unassembled box closer. Inside were rift samples, an oblong cylinder containing brightly-glowing lyrium, and what looked like blood samples as well. Creepy. “This device is attuned to detect Dorian’s magic and the output of the rift. It will monitor the rift activity until we can determine how to tell when _your_ Dorian is accessing it from the other side.”

“How do you know he will?” Bull grumbled, distractedly considering logistics. It was dangerous to interact with the rift, after all.

“You honestly think he could stay away from all _this_?” Dagna slapped his abdomen lightly, drawing a grunt from him. “I’ve overheard the two of you all the way from the first floor of the tavern, and he sounds like he’s being _murdered_ \- oh, but in a good way!” she laughed conspiratorially. He couldn’t help but chuckle back, though he tried his best not to be too proud of it. “Of course he’ll be doing everything he can to try to come back,” she reassured him, and he rewarded her kindness with a vigorous scrub atop the head.

“Will you have it finished today?” he asked.

“Yep, I think so,” she said, reaching for her tools. “Barring anything unexpected, I should be getting some readings by this afternoon!” She bent over the task, muttering something about how Dorian didn’t do a wise thing, but at least it sure was a challenge. Shaking his head, Bull headed back through the rotunda and across the bridge.

Knocking on Cullen’s door, he let himself in quietly, waiting for the scout to collect a pile of completed forms, leaving behind still plenty enough to do. “Hey Commander. How’s it going?” he asked, advancing cautiously into the space. He’d have leaned on something a little farther away if it weren’t such a stark space; in response to his encroachment, Cullen pushed himself to his feet in a reaction worthy of any predator when faced with another of the same.

“You know how it is, Bull,” he replied amicably, looking up at him curiously. “Something on your mind?”

“Oh, a good few things,” he admitted, “but not all of them are worth troubling you about.” Taking a moment to survey him, he noticed that, although he still appeared to be pushing himself, as he ever did, he seemed as though he’d been relaxed and buoyed recently. “You’re looking good lately, I must say.”

The Commander tensed in response, looking as though he might start spontaneously coughing. “Ah, well. Um, I’m glad to hear I inspire confidence.”

He hummed in approval. “I’m glad the two of you took my advice. Just don’t get too deep in things,” he warned. “It’s not as though he can stay.”

“I-” he blushed. “I know that,” he dropped his eyes back to his reports, to the pen in his hand which he was twirling around awkwardly. “I think we both know, but…”

He felt himself soften a little. Anything that made Cullen look so well was probably a good thing. However, that didn’t mean that this thing would be tenable. “It’s not easy when you’re in the thick of it. Pain is part of it though, right?”

“Maybe so,” he agreed faintly. “Dorian seems to think I should, eh… find someone,” he admitted, pale lashes fluttering slightly as though baffled and embarrassed. “It’s strange to have someone so close to me, even temporarily.” He sounded uncomfortable, and his golden-brown eyes rose, assessing the taller warrior carefully. “If you are worried about your own Dorian, please don’t be - not on my account,” he added quietly. “Their resemblance is… well, it’s not superficial, but they’ve certainly grown apart in the past few years.”

“I agree,” he said, and Cullen seemed surprised. “Your Dorian is much more honest.”

“He’s not…” his brow creased in distress.

“Call a thing by its name,” Bull demurred. “Maybe he’ll rub off on you. Well, I guess he’s already done that,” he corrected himself, watching the pale Fereldan man turn beet-colored. “I mean, maybe you’ll pick up some of his habits. If you valued yourself the way he does - or even the way he values himself - it could certainly change things for you.” He shrugged. “And it may hurt him to be near you, but it’s a comfort, all the same.”

“I… sensed that. I didn’t intend to hurt him though,” he murmured, fiddling with the pen as he set it down into the inkwell. “He’s… I wondered, if it was like that for you too,” he admitted, meeting Bull’s single eye, curiously. “In- in bed,” he looked like he’d almost choked himself too much to go on. “He’s confident, as you might expect from an ego like that,” he quirked a half-grin, “but he’s also patient and generous. I’m not accustomed to that gentleness in him, and I wondered if it was the same. I just don’t think I imagined sex with Dorian - well, at all, really,” he flushed fetchingly again. “But if I had, I don’t think I would have expected it to be so…”

“Hot?” The _Tal-Vashoth_ smirked at him. “Mind-blowing? Filthy?”

He looked like he was about to set his hair on fire with his own blush by now. “Well yes, those,” his voice gave out and he had to clear his throat. “But I was going to say… fun.”

That was not what he’d expected. “Come again?”

“It’s just… he’s _fun_ ,” Cullen shrugged awkwardly. “I don’t know how else to say it. He- he laughs, and makes terrible jokes, and sometimes good ones - and he tells funny stories, including the voices,” He laughed helplessly behind one curled fist as though remembering a particular tale. “Also, once he brought a Dwarven puzzle box to bed, and that was funny too until we solved it, and apparently it was Sera’s and there was something embarrassing inside,” he huffed, half exasperated. Then he realized how he was going on and made a terribly self-conscious sound, one hand going up to rub behind his neck. “Maker, I have no idea why I’m talking about this.”

Startled, Bull realized that it was very different from his own lover. Not to say that he and Dorian didn’t have fun - they definitely did. But most of the jokes were his own; their time together was more controlled and carnal - less companionable, in some ways. The Rutherfords had a romance built on that companionship. While his Dorian was precious to him in ways he didn’t have words for, and he enjoyed giving Dorian everything he thought he wanted and needed, sometimes he wondered if he and his _Kadan_ would even know what to do if they weren’t drinking, trading barbs, or having sex.

It felt like a slap in the face to realize that once Dorian left for Tevinter, he didn’t even know if he would know how to write him a letter that wasn’t dirty. What would he even have to offer an _altus_? He wasn’t even sure what he would say. He composed himself quickly, but he felt a little unsteady. “It’s a bit different for us.”

Cullen just looked so _surprised_ , and then he blushed again like maybe he could sort of guess at the differences. “Oh, I…” he cleared his throat, and then just looked stoic - the face he made when he was masking his lyrium withdrawal symptoms. “I apologize. I overstepped.”

“Nah. Don’t worry about it,” he mumbled, and swallowed. “Are you... gonna be okay when he…?” _Leaves for good_?

“Should I stop a positive thing just because I know it won’t last forever?” Cullen was good at suffering. He stared darkly past Bull, at the far wall, like it was an irritatingly unruly recruit. “Should I regret squandering these precious few days, when I’m dying alone in the end?”

_Fuck_ , Bull thought quietly. “Sorry, Cullen,” he said, at a loss for words, for once. He regretted giving them his blessing - like it would have made any difference. There was at least one thing he could do, however. “Can I make a suggestion?”

Those golden eyes lifted to his face, brows lifting quizzically.

“This is what you should do. Go down to Belle’s shop, buy her most expensive lotion,” he hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “Give it to Dorian as a Wintersend present - he won’t touch anything that belongs to… to _my_ Dorian unless he has to, but he hates the way his skin feels in the winter,” he explained, and he’d never admit it, but for once he was wistful for the _altus’_ perpetual whining. “Buy it and go immediately to the Chantry and say your prayers.”

“I… what?”

“Trust me. Go right now.” He urged, going around behind the desk to shoo him out toward the door. Cullen was too perplexed to stand his ground. “Take your coin pouch,” he reminded the ex-Templar. The befuddled man stumbled through the south exit to take the stairs down into the courtyard as Bull followed him out. “Don’t forget to go pray!”

He wandered the battlements after seeing the Commander off. From his vantage point he saw the man frown down at the small glass jar in his hands, and then turn for the garden as bidden. If he had to guess, he’d venture that a grief-stricken newlywed widower, who was secretly researching illicit rift magic and Time magic spells when his concerned friends forgot to keep an eye on him, could easily lose track of the date. If the romantic idiots had decided to get married on Wintersend 9:43, a year ago tomorrow, it wouldn’t shock him in the slightest.

On the battlements, the spirit found him. “Hello, The Iron Bull.”

“Hey kid,” he greeted Cole as nonchalantly as possible.

“I came to help,” he announced, leaning on one of the nearby crenellation stones. “But, it’s tangled, and I’m afraid it might tear,” he said, sounding tenderly concerned.

“It’s okay, Cole. Don’t worry about me.”

“You’re worried you may have hurt them more than helped them?” he discerned, regardless of the rebuff. “Filling the cracks where I used to be whole - no one has ever looked at me that way before him. He’s so bright, no one ever stays; I’m never worth their time.” He looked thoughtfully back toward the garden as he spoke, his lips pursed beneath the broad, dark-brimmed hat. “They’re both struggling to break their chains. Frightening to feel untethered, but stronger in one another’s arms.”

Turning back to Bull, he looked at him - through him - carefully. “Unlearning not to want more than your role allows. Stumbling steps where the wall used to be. Tama, how will I serve the Qun? ...Tama, what am I without the Qun?”

Curling his fists, Bull found his jaw grinding, rage and … something like _shame_ raining down on him. At least this time, he wasn’t speaking in front of everyone - Rainier, Adaar, Dorian, for fuck’s sake - but it almost made him feel like he was outnumbered in the fight.

Whatever had happened, however, Cole was fully automatic now, words tumbling from his mouth like waterfalls over a precipice. “Every buckle a lock missing its key; every key lost somewhere between Redcliffe and Minrathous. You can tear down the doors, but that would leave him exposed - he doesn’t want you to see, and you don’t want him to hate.” He turned his head, gazing down at the warrior’s waist. “He can open the door from his side, The Iron Bull, but first you have to prove that he is safe.”

Bull caught himself taking a startled breath, just as Cole raised one pale, blunt-fingered hand and pointed at the pouch at his belt. “A single tiny thread stretches through the keyhole in the door, each side appears as half of one whole thing that connects both sides. A bite that once dealt death ties you together, no matter how far. Don’t worry; it only takes one eye to look through the keyhole.”

Startled, he glanced down at his waist, and when he looked up again, Cole had disappeared. Now he wasn’t able to outright vanish, perhaps, but he sure as hell knew how to take advantage of a good distraction. Left alone, he thought through the broken imagery the impertinent spirit had left behind for him. After a long consideration, he reached into the pocket and sorted through the bits and pieces there by touch. A sharpish edge -

Grunting in surprise, he pulled out the item he always carried on him, even when he couldn’t wear it. Dangling from the cord wound around his fingers, the severed half of a polished dragon’s tooth glimmered brightly in the light, glaring in the bright winter sun. Eyes softening in memory of the exchange, he thought back to the night that Dorian had presented it to him - naked and half-draped sideways over his chest, drying sweat gleaming on his shoulder, hair loose and dark over his forehead after their exertions. Each half cradled in the palm of one fine caramel hand, eyes glinting gold with candlelight on silver as he’d looked straight up at him.

_There is something there,_ he insisted to himself, palm squeezing around the tooth. Dragons had been believed extinct for ages, but the southerners didn’t know enough to question when he’d mentioned the ancient fairy tale for two lovers soon to part. He’d spoken of it loosely, lightly, after a few bottles, and word had somehow gotten to his pretty ‘Vint - his literal prince charming, who had defied expectation and filled a fantasy most Qunari knew better than to give credence to. _He did that for me._

_Amatus. Kadan._ What was between them may be poorly defined; the edges may be cracked and bleeding into their friendship, into their camaraderie. However, he knew he wouldn’t trade it for anything - wouldn’t replace him with anyone. No matter how many days - weeks - and eventually, maybe even months or years would go by in solitude. Even if it were awkward, and stretched thin, and inconvenient. It had to be Dorian.

What a riot. If there were any gods, any omniscient beings who had elected to mate two souls from opposite sides of the battle lines, then they were surely laughing heartily. Part of him wanted to worry about the significance of a world where Dorian found happiness with Cullen, and he himself had died, and what that meant. He supposed it had been bothering him all this time, really.

In the end, however, it didn’t really matter. His _Kadan_ fit him. They came together like two things meant to be bound. It was enough. It had to be enough. He had to hope Dorian felt the same way, that he’d stuck beside him so closely because of that sense of belonging. Cole had been right - no matter how far apart they were, they would always be connected.

Clutching the tooth in his hand, he went to seek out Dagna again. The necklace joined the table of samples, though they didn’t know what they were looking for, and he even helped her carry the table, setting it up near the rift. She had an impressive array of tools and charts; Dorian’s Tranquil friend helped her set up and begin monitoring whatever sort of output the devices created for her to see - mainly in the form of lights, delicate crystals overlaid with enchantments, complex-looking hourglasses, some unreadable dial with gears and swinging hands, and scrambling human hands jotting down each shift.

Bull carried chairs, collected parchment, brought them some watered-down ales to drink, and shared what he knew with Adaar when she meandered by to check into things. “Mainly they’ll just be looking at things for the first day or two. I can at least promise you that Wintersend will be quiet, Boss.”

“Good,” she grunted. “Sera plans to get me so drunk I can’t see straight. Josephine said something about cake that actually has rum in it.”

“In Orlais, they set it on fire,” he replied distractedly. Adaar’s eyes widened with something between alarm and mischief - there was the woman who bedded a Red Jenny.

“Setting things on fire is a fine Wintersend tradition,” Dagna agreed over her shoulder. “Are we doing a bonfire this year, Inquisitor?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Can we ask Cullen?”

“Hey Boss,” he suggested amiably. “Leave Cullen be for a while if you can. At least until well after _Missus_ Rutherford is gone,” he tried to make it a joke, but it wasn’t funny. She didn’t think so either.

“Aw, _Void_ , Bull. Really?” She asked.

“Dunno,” he admitted. “It’s a hard pill to swallow, but he’s an adult, so just leave him be.” He shrugged. “I bet plenty of the soldiers will take orders from you or Her Holiness if you want to burn a patch of forest tomorrow,” he chuckled. “Oh, ask Josie if she planned anything already. You know how she is.” Adaar gave him a grin like he was saving her from a lot of trouble.

Once she’d sauntered off, Bull pestered Dagna a while longer. “So what happens next?”

“We _wait_ ,” she chastised him. In a few days, they would know more, and he would just have to accept that. So he went and let the Chargers console him at the bar, which they were cautiously moving everything back into since the more demon-y parts of the rift were under control.

“Krem,” he asked quietly, keeping his voice soft under the sounds of drinking and arm wrestling and loud stories. “Do you think Dorian will be able to do what he aims to do?” The younger man’s brows kinked in confusion. “Uh, regular Dorian. _Our_ Dorian. In Tevinter.”

“You mean, do I think your _altus_ will be able to convince the entire Magisterium to stop bleeding Tevinter dry like a fat lot of gold-sucking, blood-guzzling twats?” The former _soporatus_ snorted inelegantly around the rim of his tankard. “Not to discourage you, Chief, but… not a chance this side of the Black City.” Another drink. “‘Specially since he ain’t a Magister in truth. As a politician, he can only aim for the Publicanium, which is weak as shit, or the Archon’s throne - which he’s not well-enough liked for.”

Shooting an awkward, puzzled look askance at his second, he found himself confused. “I thought you agreed with his motivations, in the end.”

“I do,” he assured, and the answer was so firm and forthright that Bull’s brows rose. “I don’t think he’ll succeed. But it matters that he gives enough of a damn to try,” he explained, setting the tankard down heavily. Something about the look in his eyes then reminded Bull that he’d known the younger man a long time now. He wasn’t so raw and callow as he used to be - a hard practicality existed on the road, to which he’d become well accustomed.

At his questioning look, the darker-skinned man snorted, shaking his head. “No, if Pavus wants to change things - well, he just can’t do it by himself. But as part of something else, he _could_ be an instrument to guide a change already in motion. He just couldn’t start the avalanche all by himself,” he relented enough to explain. “I won’t exactly say that he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty, but he would have to be willing to destroy part of Tevinter in order to save the rest of it. Only thing they understand back home is _blood_.”

“When he goes back,” Bull began, lowering his voice further, licking his lips carefully. “Well, we have a good thing going with the Chargers,” he rumbled, real low. “Don’t plan on ducking out on you boys. But… there might be a time when I have to go to him. Need to know if you’re willing to step up if that happens. You don’t have to answer right now, but… might need you to take over for a while on occasion. Maybe even… help out a bit, if you’re willing. If something goes wrong.”

“...And we’re talking about politicians, here - fucking _Magisters_ ,” Krem looked like he wanted to spit on the floor, or at least like he’d smelled something bad. “So, eventually something will definitely go wrong.” He closed his eyes as he shook his head, and sighed. “We’ll take it as it comes, Chief, I won’t lie,” he replied, and then reached across to punch his bicep. “But you know me. I’ve got your left.”

“You an’ that maul almost big as I am,” he grinned. “You’re the best, Krem de la crème.”

“Had to get yourself besotted with a Maker-damned _altus_ , you big lug. Can’t make our lives any _easier_ , like bedding a rich Orlesian heiress with cute sisters, could you,” he bitched good-naturedly, and Bull laughed to himself.

“Nah, you know how it is,” he replied genially. “It had to be him.”

Krem tilted his head in acknowledgement, and slammed the side of his tankard against that of the _Tal-Vashoth_. “Just don’t get dead, ‘s all I ask.” Bull just let a small piece of his smile leak out across the corner of the table they occupied, and his lieutenant grunted. “Now you’re embarrassing us,” he griped.

“No, I’ll show you embarrassment,” he reached out both hands.

Backpedaling, Krem ducked the grasp and scrambled up. “Hey!” he called brightly. “Drinks for the table on me!” and bounced out of reach as Bull lifted one long arm in his direction. “I’m gonna go get those!” he called over the cheering that earned. Bull chuckled and let him go, looking down into his drink like the answers were at the bottom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's stuck around to read. I feel like I should also thank Bull for all his running around this chapter.
> 
> This is the Christmas Eve 2020 posting, so... happy holidays!
> 
> (I promise the next chapter is thirstier.)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I've always loved Wintersend," he admitted quietly, perched on the edge of the bed, remembering past celebrations. "It's always like the start of something."_
> 
> _"Yes, I know," Dorian raised one hand out of the covers, fingertip wiping quickly at his eyes as he snuffled in a damp inhale. "Only this year, it is also an end."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy NYE 2020 y'all.
> 
> Again, thirsty chapter. I promise some stuff happens too, somewhere in there. ;) This chapter catches Cullen's POV up with Bull's and ends on Wintersend, 1 Guardian 9:44.
> 
> If anybody wants to torture themselves with some of the music I listened to while writing this, I made a [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqWB7suJbSh-lHNCaG6f8PLOhiKkkbqhA)

After spending the night together for the first time, the days before Wintersend were nothing Cullen would have expected. He might have anticipated a swift retreat, a chagrined apology; a great chasm of distance as the pain of their indiscretion sunk into the former _altus_ in record time. At best, some awkward flirting to put them on an even keel.

What he got was completely different. It was clear, for one thing, that Dorian no longer spent nights with The Iron Bull, even platonically. This change was evident primarily because he took any excuse to be nearby, in the Commander’s presence instead. In fact, he didn’t even bother to manufacture excuses. He cozied up to an empty-ish corner of the desk with his charts and a stack of tomes on the floor next to him, a more comfortable chair pilfered from the rotunda across the bridge. Unless feeling unwell or in need of a consultation with Dagna which would be too disruptive to the business of running a relatively quiet Inquisition, he stayed nearby.

Their eyes met some, and occasionally he pulled together a quiet smile to meet Cullen’s uneasy, searching glance, but as often as not, he simply glanced him over, as though checking his well-being, and went right back to work. It should have been stifling, or even claustrophobic, but somehow it was not. Part of that may be that his leg would stiffen and he would rise to walk out the cramp on the battlements; or he would step away and bring back a warm drink for them both, and there were even times when he simply set his work down on the floor and climbed the ladder without an announcement.

In confusion, Cullen had followed him up the ladder the second time this occurred, to find him lying flat on the bed, rubbing his knee and subjecting it to what seemed to be a demanding stretch regimen. Once completed, he dropped his leg and caught his breath, glancing over at the Commander. “You’re looking peaked,” he beckoned with one hand, lazily. “Come, come.” If he hadn’t looked so wrung out himself, he might have suspected the mage’s intentions, but he approached warily, and Dorian simply caught hold of Cullen’s belt and hauled him down, wiggling over to open more empty space for him to lie in - thankfully, he had not been wearing his armor, for once.

Fingers found his scalp, rubbing at the traces of an intermittent headache, a prickle of warming magic soothing the hurt and the draw of mana racing over his skin. Unaccustomed to such quiet and undemanding comfort, he had nodded off, head on Dorian’s fur-clad shoulder. When he stirred restlessly, a warm Tevene murmur urged him back to rest, lips between his brows. He’d slept until a particularly noisy scout downstairs had woken them both, and upon rising, his afternoon had been no less long, but measurably less taxing than expected.

In the evening, they ate without fanfare, and Dorian inquired politely if he intended to visit the troops, as he frequently did when given too much free time. He’d declined, as he had a meeting of his captains scheduled on the morrow, and earned a warm glow of a smile from the mage when he’d instead asked if he’d care to get a drink. He bought Dorian a glass of the best wine Cabot had available, but the mage covered the rim of his glass when offered a refill.

“I promised,” he explained. “A difficult vow to keep, to be sure, given someone descended from my mother’s alcohol line - oh, I do mean bloodline, but with her, it’s so dreadfully easy to get the two confused. Nevertheless, it’s a promise between Rutherfords; you know how it is.” His half-smile was wan but fond.

He did indeed. He’d heard that phrase often, growing up. That it meant something to him - meant enough to keep him from going down a path Cullen had always suspected lay a few nights’ poor decisions beyond Dorian’s fingertips anyway - was terribly charming. _A promise between Rutherfords_ indeed - his heart melted a little, somehow, because he could see Mia throwing that into the new widower’s face like a bucket of cold water after the funeral.

Giving Dorian his arm, he walked the man back up to his own rooms - to help him keep his footing on the cold, slick stones, of course - though their pace was meandering and their dialogue scarce. The sky purpled nicely enough that he was almost loath to abandon it, and despite his obvious chill, he sensed that the Tevinter man was comfortable with dallying.

Inside the office, he shut the door and threw the bolt, and suddenly he had an armful of mage. He hadn’t expected it so quickly, but he’d be dishonest to say he hadn’t been thinking of it. Slamming him back against the locked door, Dorian didn’t bother to lock the other two before diving into a rather strenuous kiss. Accustomed to backing down to regroup at the first sign of ambush, Cullen found himself far more content to stand his ground, and was only mildly surprised to find that the flavour of wine complimented the taste of his partner’s mouth.

Burying his face into Dorian’s neck, he gasped - they both did, catching their breath - and let his fingers seek out the rising heat in the mage’s cheek. Pressing to him urgently, Dorian bent toward his ear and whispered words of appreciation, thanking him for how well the Commander fucked his mouth last night, wondering if he might be so inclined to perform the same favor again.

“Kiss your mother with that mouth?” he demanded breathlessly, all the blood in him rushing south as he felt practiced hands untying his trousers. Even as he said it, his fingertips were gliding over that full bottom lip, free hand cupping the other man against him.

“Absolutely not; the woman is death in a bottle. I’ll kiss you with it, though,” he replied with some levity. Before he knew it, Dorian had sunk down to his good knee, wet lips and chill nose nuzzling at the swath of warm belly he had exposed when he’d yanked tunic and trousers apart, tongue swirling around the base of his half-hard cock, leaving a kiss of teeth in his skin.

Gasping, Cullen brought the back of one gloved hand to his mouth. Fully clothed, in his office, the sun not set, the doors unlocked - the urgency punched him in the gut, and a second punch made the whole world spin as Dorian took him in his mouth, lovingly plunging down to his root. He felt the exaggerated movements of his tongue and lips this time while he was still half soft, but that state didn’t last for long.

Soon enough he was fully firm and throbbing in the back of the other man’s more experienced throat, and small whimpering noises were muffled in the back of his glove. His hips had begun inching forward in tiny bursts, until Dorian reached up and clamped him up against the door with a hard push, backing up to tease and toy around the head of his cock, the sensitive ridge, the vulnerable tip, with his tongue. After a great gulp of air he dove downward again. A deeper-voiced moan broke free of him, uninvited, leaving him blinking.

Without giving him a chance to recoup his balance, Dorian pursued his climax aggressively, hungrily. He made small sounds of his own every time Cullen twitched or hardened farther, or every time he let slip a moan he’d been meaning to hold back. He grabbed the Commander’s hand and put it on his shoulder, hands slipping behind him when the mage was at last limber enough to receive what he’d asked for.

Unsteadily, the Commander leaned forward onto his hand, the other falling to bury itself in the silky black locks pulled away from his face. Dorian hollowed his cheeks and pulled back slowly, silver-gray eyes on him, and popped off his tip. “Well, _Commander?_ ” he teased, and then the beastly man opened his mouth, jaw wide and tongue flat and inviting, looking up at him with half-lidded desire, hot breath panting millimeters from the tip of his cock.

Andraste preserve him, but he was only a man, and he loved the way that supple tongue curved around his tip when he leaned forward. He let his eyes fall shut as Cullen eased his way in, watching his cheeks fill with his length, and hearing the hitch in his breath when he pressed all the way back into his throat - where he already knew he would fit. When he was all in, those eyes opened and locked on his, and he applied encouraging suction.

Body taking over, he found himself thrusting into his mouth with slowly increasing speed, enjoying the breathy little sighs, the tight clamp of his lips, and the way Dorian moaned loudly when his control slipped, and he dragged the mage forward by the hair to cover him completely. Clever fingers scraped his abdomen, stroked around his base, and tugged gently at his balls, goading him onward. He lost his balance and fell the scant couple of inches back onto the door, holding onto the roots of Dorian’s hair for dear life until the hot throbbing surge crackled up his spine, throwing his head back and snapping his jaw shut.

A small sound of surprise, and Dorian willingly followed the absent clutch of hands that brought him down to the root, swallowing frantically around the thick spend in his throat. His breathing was ragged when he’d finally seen the Fereldan man through his orgasm, and been allowed to pull back. Very sweetly, he smiled, and kissed the flushed tip of the cock he’d hardly laid eyes on since the mage went down, then wiped the corner of his mouth automatically with his thumb; a habit, it seemed. “Beautifully done, darling,” he praised, voice spoiled again. The words sent a feeble warmth seeping through his chest and belly as he buckled his shaking knees into place against the door, tongue wetting his lips as he tried to clear his head.

Considerately, the former _altus_ had covered him up, tucked him into his garments, and laid a musky-scented kiss on his cheek after laboriously rising. His leathers kept him constricted, but his own interest was apparent. Still, he’d turned away as though unconcerned and went to climb the ladder. Cullen watched him ascend and cursed softly in the empty room for a moment, legs shaking as he went to lock the other doors.

When he climbed up, Dorian had already picked out one of Cullen’s long tunics to sleep in - the one he’d confessed to wanting to steal - and was most of the way toward disrobing in the chill room. That was the first night he’d realized that he’d picked up the mage as one does a feral cat - looking up at the shiny-eyed creature crouching atop one’s wardrobe and realizing he meant to stay, and perhaps offer whatever comforts the Commander might desire, in exchange.

Before he’d summoned the words to question the arrangement, Dorian had slipped into the covers and the spare blanket, and settled down on the far side of the bed, taking his hair down and leaving the tie on the nightstand with a stretch. “You need not be concerned with me, if you’ve a mind to stay up, and write those infernal reports, or what-have-you,” he waved one hand lazily in the air, then punched the pillow into place. Dissatisfied, he exchanged it for Cullen’s own pillow and sighed into it contentedly.

“...Ridiculous mage,” he muttered, beginning the process of disrobing. He thought he saw a curl of amusement below that modest moustache, but it was mostly too dark to tell. In the dark, it was quite cold, and he looked up at the ceiling, briefly worried about being able to keep him alive in these almost-outdoor conditions. Still, the man was no fool regarding his own tolerance of the cold, so the Commander changed for bed, slipping in beside him.

At first, he simply stared at the back of his head - Dorian had turned his back to him when he’d climbed into the bedsheets. Why had he done that, downstairs, if not for reciprocation? It had felt amazing - this man gave altogether the most dedicated and stunning fellatio he’d ever had - though the variety of options he had to compare them to was not generous. Still, it bothered him to think there was any possibility that he thought he might need to make reparations for his presence here.

If Dorian didn’t want to be touched, he should respect that, he told himself, and hesitated before nudging into a more comfortable position in the mattress. But, he hadn’t _said_ he didn’t want to be touched. He’d certainly invited intimacy downstairs… Taking his chances, he scooted closer still, and turned onto his side, one arm threading around his narrow waist, pulling the former _altus_ back to lean against his chest. The sigh that rocked through his smaller spoon was all-encompassing; a deep satisfaction at being held, at being tucked under his arm and having his hair serve as the Commander’s pillow.

“Junou was right about you,” he muttered into one dark ear, noticing in the low rising moonlight that his ears were pierced, in several spots, though it looked as though they hadn’t been worn recently. “You are indeed a menace.” Grinning, the slighter man rumbled laughter deep in his chest, reaching back to thread fingers into his hair, eyes still closed. The usually talkative mage said nothing back, however, and he felt his own face shift into something more pensive. “If you… don’t wish -”

“Hush,” Dorian cupped his cheek backward with the same palm. “We’ll do nothing we’re uncomfortable with, and it takes only a word to establish such, yes?” He seemed unperturbed by the idea, and Cullen took in a silent breath in comprehension. He’d apparently spent a very long time catering to a feeble, ill ex-Templar’s discomfort with both intimacy and magic. The biggest obstacle in his relationship with his husband was likely the Fereldan man’s own natural reticence. This was his kindness - not wanting to impose on a version of Cullen who had not yet learned the level of honest communication needed for this type of exchange.

“May I… may we move forward presuming that to be our guideline?” he asked, as carefully as he’d ever presented a strategy across the War Table, or a hostile Knight-Commander’s desk.

“Of course.”

Nodding once, he hummed approval, and then abruptly shifted his hand down to curl around Dorian’s thigh. It was the left one, by virtue of his position, and he stroked down into the scarring, letting his fingers linger very gently, cautious of any hurt. The other man’s eyes opened and he drew a deep breath through his nose, but he didn’t flinch or recoil. “...Will you tell me?”

He kept his hand stroking up and down the tender skin of his thigh, burrowing his mouth into the back of his neck lazily. It was comfortable, for all that it made his pulse accelerate. Dorian cleared his throat. “Not much to tell. Last one standing, that man of mine,” he said, his voice strained slightly. “His unit went down facing this… hellacious-looking ogre; a bunch of hurlocks dividing everyone up, Maker-damned shrieks to boot,” he grumbled, shifting a little under the touch. “He was already injured, bleeding, shield arm broken. What should one do? I tried magic from afar, but with that hide, the beast didn’t even feel me.”

His shrug was less dismissal and more discomfort. “So I Fade-stepped over just as it was going to snatch him up and shoved him out of the way. I had time only to cast a barrier and it had me up in the air, but a single barrier does little good - crushed almost as soon as it’s formed,” he grimaced, a remembered shudder working down his spine. “One has to be creative. I ended up creating a, um… a sort of _shell_ , out of force magic, you know?”

“Like…” Cullen’s brow furrowed. “Like an egg?”

“With a silverite shell, yes,” he sniffed. “Between that and the barrier, and the fact that I’ve yet to meet a mage with a deeper natural mana pool than myself… hmm, maybe Solas… I survived. I managed to cast Walking Bomb on the ogre, and then I raised all the corpses I could manage, before it threw me across the river. I actually felt myself flying through the air, and had time for one last barrier spell before I hit the side of an ancient Elven aqueduct.”

His hand crept up beneath the hem of the tunic, just gradually, and Dorian was distracted momentarily; he seemed to gather himself, however, long enough to finish his tale. “Not sure how I lived, to tell you the truth. Ruined my leg - my left side took the brunt, and I went into mana shock. Also, I landed half in the river, they say, and barely avoided drowning,” he laughed uncomfortably. “It was a… difficult recovery, but on the bright side, my husband was too thankful I’d pulled through to put up even half the fuss he might have done.”

“Bet he was scared sick,” he replied, low in the warm flesh just behind his ear. “He was trained to be used to the idea of sacrificing himself. Dying to protect a civilian, or a mage - especially _his_ mage - that was second nature. Watching you hurt, when he couldn’t do anything about it - and keep on hurting - that would have been hard.”

“Well,” he replied, seeming lost for words for a moment. “I suppose I have it from the authority, then,” he agreed. Cullen opened his eyes, watching Dorian’s empty fists tighten on the pillow before his face. “...Not exactly the conversation to go with where your hands are venturing, ser.”

Amused, he slid his hand boldly up over the sensitive creases between his torso and thigh, making him jerk, and hiked the tunic up along with his thumb as he travelled upward over bare skin, first caressing and then tweaking each nipple. He worked his other hand beneath Dorian to pull him back to his chest further, smoothing out his palms to feel his muscles twitch beneath the skin. “I thought a little payback was in order. After all, as much as I enjoyed…” he took a deep breath, committing himself to a touch of the same spoken filth he’d been granted earlier. “...coming down your throat downstairs - half the Inquisition could have trooped in the side door, did you even think of that? - it’s a bit unfair that you know how to talk me half to my finish. What if I’d had different ideas about how the evening would go?”

Rolling his hips into the Commander’s hands - the touch that timidly, yet unfalteringly, explored every part of him around his renewing interest - Dorian lifted his leg to throw it back overtop Cullen’s own. He inhaled shakily. “Darling, please accept my _humblest_ apologies,” he opened his mouth to say more, but a distracted nasal-sounding moan emerged instead when he felt Cullen’s fingertips press into the soft, velvety crease between his stiffening flesh and balls, and he drifted quiet in the circle of his arms, his breathing heavier as he was subjected to those small, curious touches.

“Absolutely not,” he rumbled. “Reparations must be made.” Unable to keep from a small smirk, Dorian raised his arms over his head, shrugging the tunic back off carelessly, and then his hand locked around his opposite wrist behind Cullen’s head. “I will…” he blushed and bit the mage’s earlobe, inhaling the scent of his hair. “I will have you fuck every last finger touching you right now before I let you come.”

“Oh! Well then, by all means, chastise me _properly_ , Commander,” he purred. A little laugh couldn’t quite be contained, and he bit down on the back of his neck in retaliation.

Mostly, it was just about exploring - safe, alone together in the dark. Dorian seemed to understand that, and only redirected him when something was awkward or there was a better way. Fingers inside him again, dripping with oil; fingers feeling out the shape of him, under his uncut flesh, thumbs gliding up and down the inside of his thigh, or sliding over a taut nipple. Every touch built confidence, and every little sound wrung out of him made the Fereldan man warmer inside, until he was sliding his hands over a firm shaft, letting Dorian grind back against his own returning erection fitted into the crease of him, small sounds, little panting breaths in the mage’s ear urging him on.

His name was whispered when he came, little hard jerks of his hips, and with a short rest after he’d caught his breath, the mage turned in the bed, pulling his damp linen pants down from his hips and straddling him, relying on his good knee and the copious oil left inside his body to sink down onto him. His climax was slower to crest this time, but he liked the way the moonlight glittered in Dorian’s loose hair as he gazed up at the mage, glimmering in the stripes of fluid on his stomach, and framing a thin, cold mantle around his shoulders. He was pleased to watch the roll of his hips and savor the strength inside his body, every sensation sinking to the bottom of his gut like a pile of hot stones in the bottom of a well, threatening to overflow him.

Somewhere in it all, Dorian rose to the challenge again as well, and they were moving together with growing urgency. His muscles clenched beautifully inside when Cullen took hold of his still-slick length, keeping them apace with one another, thumb swiping his tip with deliberate slowness. He’d said little, but there close to the end, a long line of heartfelt swears groaned out of his lips, his head tilting back. They were warm together, but his breath clouded up into the air as he panted lightly.

Sensitive with a second round so soon, the mage didn’t last as long as he might have, but it was perfect, lining up their peaks almost neatly, his hips pushing up into Dorian’s body, the dark golden-brown planes of him taut and shivering until he came down again, his muscles tight in his belly where the moan in his voice seemed to originate from. The dark-haired man grimaced, however, when he rose to his knees; his fairer companion was startled and somehow captivated by the rush of fluid out of his body in the low light. Boldly, just a little proudly, he slipped his fingers inside him again, swallowing hard and earning a flutter of eyelashes and breath. The mage’s back arched a little, and his cock twitched but had no real stamina to rise.

“It’s always the good little Chantry boys,” Dorian rumbled, in high humor, though his discomfort was obvious when he swung his good leg back off of Cullen, and collapsed next to him. “Cold,” he declared imperiously, after catching his breath.

“I’ll cover you up,” he offered and reached for the blankets, but the mage was lying half on them and he couldn’t get them free. Sighing his body’s reluctant exhaustion, he collapsed onto Dorian, forcing a little _oof_ out of him, and they both ended up giggling like children as the declaration became an inadvertent, literal joke.

“Warm fuzzy blanket,” he mumbled, raising his head from the pillow just enough to press his lips to Cullen’s shoulder, sink in his teeth gently, then release him and fall back. “Hmm, I didn’t really expect all this,” he admitted, in a moment of startling honesty. “I thought it would be a hard adjustment for you. It certainly was for my husband. When he proposed, I was afraid the new post-Breach era had left him a bit mad.”

“Ah, take pity on the man. You are quite maddening,” he replied, muffled into his hair.

“So I’ve been told.” He was quiet, and reached up, drawing his hands through Cullen’s hair, gone half-feral with their exertions. He wove stray curls around his fingers with the ease of long familiarity. “You’re rather splendid, you know,” he murmured, his voice rolling sleepily into the dark. “Would you believe you’re far less shy than he was?” Small kisses were left along his hairline, and a single flick of a tongue traced a tiny scar in his ear. “Riding out the Inquisition as a bachelor must have been interesting.”

“I wouldn’t have said so, but who knows,” he murmured. “If there were differences between our backgrounds, it would be hard to know now,” he observed, though the words came slowly. Realizing he was starting to feel sleepy, he rose onto his elbows and looked down at his bed companion. Blinking widely, he reacquainted himself with the reality of whom exactly it was that he was bantering - and exchanging pleasure - with. Dorian’s head tilted slightly by expedient of rolling on the pillow, smiling faintly. “I’ve wondered…” he reached down the bed and flicked the mage’s toes, causing him to squeak but curl up his legs at the knees so that the Commander could retrieve the blanket to pull over them both. “Why do you think it is that you’re no longer that same _altus_ who stumbled into Haven, hmm?”

He ran a finger over his moustache, an old nervous habit, and his eyes roamed the ceiling distantly. “One lacks the objectivity for self-assessment at times,” he admitted. “But perhaps a certain adorably honest ex-Templar had something to do with it?” He smiled wistfully, at the ceiling at first, and then blinked down at him. “Consider that it was here in the south that I was offered everything I’d secretly longed for in my private life. It cost only my legacy, my past, my homeland, and a truly frightening quantity of honesty.”

“It doesn’t seem like a fair deal,” he murmured. “To ask you to give up so much.”

“But it wasn’t you - it wasn’t _him_ who did the asking. That makes a difference,” he explained patiently. “All he did was offer all the warmth and affection I wanted, the chance to have someone at my side who wasn’t ashamed of me - parts of me - and didn’t demand I leave in the morning before anyone saw.”

Settling down at his side, Cullen blinked attentively but sleepily at him. “I was offered respect from a partner, and from friends who didn’t define me by the gender of my lover; who appreciated my contributions and gave me no reason to fear for my life when they handed me a drink in the tavern,” he smothered a chuckle. “No, the only people who asked anything of me were my so-called family. And they did not so much _ask_ , but rather _demand_ that their investment of time, funds, and affection was a finite resource that I was obligated to repay. They demanded a thousand tiny deaths and humiliations each day.” A ripple of a bitter snarl flickered across his face. “I paid with the loss of my homeland, but I paid to escape _that_. I surrendered wealth and conditional love, and I gained dignity and _un_ conditional love.”

He didn’t feel qualified to comment on that. Instead he reached up and distractedly pushed a few dark threads of hair away from his face. “I’m glad you found some piece of happiness,” he murmured. “I’m only sorry you were not destined to hold it longer.”

“Perfection is fleeting, perhaps,” he mumbled, his lids seeming heavy. “But we of the Imperium never love by halves. We have little reserve, in many aspects of life.” He fought off a yawn. “Will you keep me awake all night? Inconsiderate man.”

“Sorry,” he smiled faintly. He drifted off slowly, but he felt fingers tracing the back of his hand as he sank into sleep. In the morning, he curled into Dorian’s bare back this time, beneath the sheets, and found that he slept heavily enough that even firm kisses on his shoulders did not disturb him.

The next afternoon, he allowed himself to be lured upstairs again for a nap, and the two of them lay on the bed together in the thin wintertime sunlight, fiddling with a Dwarven Puzzle Box for a good twenty or thirty minutes before managing to pop the combo that opened up the secret drawer. Cullen congratulated Dorian with a grin, since the final insight had been his, and asked what was inside. “Oh, I dunno, I swiped it from Sera - oh _sweet Maker_ ,” he slammed the box closed before the Commander got a glimpse of anything more than dawnstone-pink metal.

When he pressed for details, Dorian shook his head emphatically. “There are some things a Commander doesn’t need to know about his Commander-in-chief’s sex life; trust me, _Mea Bellator_.” Chagrined, he only nodded his acquiescence, brows up, and submitted to a neck rub and some genial attention to ease himself into a nap.

That same night, however, he shouted himself awake in a freezing cold sweat. Clapping his hand over his mouth, his eyes darted to his bed companion, realizing he hadn’t warned him of the nightmares, he hadn’t -

Oh, but of course he knew. He woke, obviously, but did not truly stir. He only blinked back into sleepiness, and pulled the ex-Templar to him, the Fereldan man’s forehead tucked now under his chin. One open hand patted gently at the collarbone just beside the hollow of his throat, and as though falling into meditation, Dorian began to hum gently, a simple melody that resolved itself into the Chant of Light after a few bars. Going limp almost immediately, he followed the rise and fall of the melody that had been sung around him so frequently it had taken up residence in his bones. His body and mind’s acquiescence to the sound of his voice was almost shocking.

No judgment, no condemnation or even mild annoyance. No pity, no extraneous demands to converse about his internal hellscape. Only warm comfort, drowsy tenderness, and a distracted brush over his forehead to wipe the sweat away with a sleeve, a press of heavy lips with a tickle of facial hair in its wake. He hummed until his voice became too rough with sleep, or he became too tired, but the hand still patted the rhythm faintly over his heart for some time until the mage’s breath evened out.

It was too novel for him to sleep immediately; the realization that the constant excuses he’d made himself to reinforce his own solitude, to spare himself the effort and pain of reaching out to people in his life whom he knew had little understanding - it all began to unravel slowly. He remembered Dorian remarking how few besides a mage or a Templar could hope to understand one another, but that still left _options_. Choices existed which he had never explored. Like the one represented by his bed partner now.

Fingertip drawing idle patterns on the other man’s wrist, he slept far sooner than he ordinarily would, and in much greater comfort. He woke at false dawn and realized the temperature had dropped more that night than he had anticipated. They had been dressed the evening before, but he reached out to check Dorian’s face and hands carefully. He was curled almost painfully tight under the blankets, but his back had been warm against Cullen’s side.

Chastising himself for almost freezing his bed partner to death, he slipped quickly from the bed and tucked the blankets securely around him, shimmying into his clothes. He made his way down to the quartermaster and asked for a small fire brazier. He collected a bundle of wood and headed back, juggling both up the ladder. He debated where to place it, and decided that there was nothing for it but to place it at Dorian’s side of the bed.

That required moving the bed further away from the far wall, for safety reasons. He moved furniture as silently as he could, and at last was able to pull the bed a decent distance away. At least there, the heat would bounce back down under the partial ceiling instead of rising through the hole. The mage didn’t stir even when the bed was dragged across the floor with him still in it, scraping slightly on the wood flooring. Shaking his head with amusement, he placed the brazier and built up the wood in it. Then he searched for a flint and realized he didn’t have one.

Cursing, he sighed, and shook the dark-skinned man awake. “Dorian,” he murmured, watching him stir just enough to pull the blanket over his ears. “I need you awake a moment,” he said, a little louder. Dull gray eyes blinked open at him at last, and he pointed to the brazier. “Light the wood, please.”

“Wood,” he muttered, and stared at the brazier uncomprehendingly.

“Yes, so you can be warmer.”

“Ah, very good then,” he muttered, with all the charm of an apprentice enchanter who hadn’t done his homework, even though he secretly suspected the mage was not really awake. Still, even semi-conscious, he lit a fire in the brazier, then put his head back down on the pillow and curled into the blanket again.

“Sleep tight,” he muttered, and found himself laying an amused kiss on the hair he pushed back from his face. He stopped and tilted his head, wistfully examining that particular impulse for a moment. Perhaps, he told himself, it was simply that it was natural to return affection given so freely. Perhaps that was all it was. The corner of the room was starting to warm up, however, so he rose and pushed himself into his morning routine.

The following night, they stayed up in his office to eat their dinner. Dorian was ever the charming dinner companion, gesturing broadly with a glass of wine as he told an outrageous story about Evelyn Trevelyan and that time she actually punched Solas in the face, leaving him gaping like an outraged Chantry sister - which Dorian had been privileged to watch firsthand from the second floor. His vivid descriptions had him laughing aloud even as he winced.

Tonight he was in such good spirits that he hardly noticed Cullen pouring him a second glass. The conversation was comfortable, even when it was about people he didn’t know well, like his friends Felix and Maevaris back in Tevinter - emphatically the only two he’d have saved if the Imperium suddenly broke off and slid into the Nocen Sea.

His words flowed freely until he realized how little Cullen had been contributing to the conversation. Then he asked a few light questions about things that were not so painful - confirming details about his family, bringing to mind a few of the less-terrible memories from Kirkwall, like playing himself penniless one leave against Varric Tethras at the Hanged Man. Isabela had been willing to spot him a whole sovereign if he agreed to kiss her, but he’d thought he was being made fun of and declined. Dorian said his husband had spared him the details including the busty pirate captain sprawled across his lap, but that that story and the few other little anecdotes it had resurrected were otherwise pretty spot-on to the telling he’d heard.

Then there was only silence and the two finishing their drinks. The atmosphere was quiet. Gray eyes held his, but gently. They hadn’t really intended to go any farther than that, that evening, but somehow he had liked the caress of those eyes enough that he was soon settled overtop him once they’d retired to bed, and they kissed languidly for what felt like hours, with little further inclination. It felt as though it had been his own idea, though he couldn’t be sure.

He’d worried briefly that Dorian was being too deliberately accommodating, but watching him, and how he seemed so comfortable in his own skin and in Cullen’s bed, couldn’t help but allay his fears. Then he worried about himself; about how he was already so completely at peace with Dorian’s presence, and although he hadn’t quite gotten to the point that he could take for granted all the tiny changes he brought, he had yet to encounter anything he couldn’t take in stride. Not the familiarity, not the unspokenly open secrets between them, not even the unaccustomed physical intimacy.

Certainly that was a result of all the years Dorian had already put in as a Rutherford marriage candidate - he was just the temporary beneficiary. _Temporary_ , he reminded himself. They knew from the beginning that each day was precious, and this time would not linger. Cullen couldn’t be sure exactly what the former _altus_ was thinking about, but he turned to face him in the bed, instead of facing away as was more comfortable with his damaged leg, and their eyes remained… well, not locked, but accessible, as the moon crept up in the sky. Dorian lit the brazier with a faint gesture and a tingle of magic before he fell asleep.

Early in the morning, he woke as though pitched from a hammock while sailing on the ocean, and some melancholy had followed him through from last night’s feelings to today. He was early enough, however, that he decided to see if he was alone in the desire for closeness. He gathered the mage to himself after slipping another wedge of fuel into the brazier, and watched the firelight glimmer in his hair for several minutes.

He never thought he’d find himself partnered with a man in any capacity, and while Dorian was pretty, he wasn’t feminine. He was shaped like a man from the tips of his fingers to the cut of his jaw. He curled his arm around him, pressing lightly on his fingernails resting on the pillow in idle wonder. Could he have been involved with the other Dorian? Just the thought made him balk awkwardly in his gut. He thought of the two of them very distinctly. He thought that, if he were involved in the transformation of Dorian Pavus into Dorian Rutherford, well, it made sense that it had taken as long as it did.

Two years wasn’t all that long, though, he told himself, surprised. They were married in two years of meeting; he was sharing space communally with this Dorian within a mere two weeks. It was astonishing, in a way. But he would never know if such a feat could be duplicated in this world. This world’s Dorian didn’t belong to him. Even this other Dorian wasn’t truly his.

“Cullen,” he cleared his throat gently in the cool morning dimness. “You must wake me, if you’re up and brooding alone.” He must have disturbed him when he reached across him to feed the fire, or he’d held him too tightly in his anxiety perhaps. Stifling a yawn, the mage stretched out his entire body slowly, toes to fingertips, trembling in his stretch until, “Ow, _fuck_.”

He grabbed for his bad leg, hissing a boatload of Antivan and Tevene curses. Cullen blinked himself more awake, and put a hand under the blankets where he clutched his lower thigh. “Can I help?” Dorian’s teeth were gritted solidly now. The muscle had seized under the skin, knotted like ship’s rigging. “Let me,” he sat up and reached down, cupping his hands around the bottom of his thigh, thumbs digging into the muscle with increasing pressure. The pained whimpers lurching from his lips were rather sad. “Should I stop?”

Urgently humming a negative noise, Dorian shook his head. Cullen bore down with both hands, rubbing, squeezing, and stretching out the muscle until the rocklike formation slowly dissolved back into ordinary muscle. “Ohh… _vishante kaffas_ ,” he sighed. “ _Bene_ , _Mea Bellator._ ”

“As you say,” he waited until the mage sighed and finally stretched out his tender limb.

“Better, thank you,” he mumbled, yawning again. Blinking up at the Fereldan man, he relaxed into the blankets despite the goosebumps on his skin. His smile was a twitchy, affectionate thing. “You’re up far too early.” He gave the Commander a space in which to speak, but when he only shrugged, that smile tweaked up a little higher on one side. “Were you lonely, in your sleep?”

“That must be it,” he agreed indulgently. It didn’t even occur to him to be insulted.

“Poor darling. Well, if I’ll do, then I’m happy to keep you company.”

“You’re an unruly influence, though,” he replied. “Not sure the Revered Mother would approve,” he clicked his tongue chidingly, hiding his own grin.

“I don’t see any clucking hens in here,” Dorian gestured around the room with one hand. “Ah, but if you’re under some obligation to self-report your own transgressions, I suppose I shouldn’t trouble you…” Grinning with full teeth when Cullen sank down into the blankets next to him, he turned a little to keep his face in sight.

Feeling pensive, he rose back onto his elbow, still looking down at the mage who’d stolen his favorite pillow. “I like having you in my bed,” he blurted out softly. Then he looked away, not sure where he meant to go with that. When he turned back, the former _altus_ was looking up at him with a mix of pleasure, worry, and surprise knitting his brows.

Smoothing the expression away, he went for his usual charm instead. “Well, I like being _had_ in your bed,” he replied, matter-of-factly. The phrasing was suggestive enough to draw a flush to Cullen’s face despite the cold. “I plan to enjoy every minute of it,” he added.

Their eyes met, and clung, and there was a tentative sort of reserve between them; the sensation of the end looming over their heads in a way they were powerless to resist. Fiddling with the skin beside his thumbnail with the fingers of his other hand, he ventured at last, “Do you think… you’ll put things back as they were, in the end?” He asked, his jaw clenching as he realized how mixed his tone sounded. “Do you think you’ll succeed?”

Beleaguered, Dorian rubbed the fingertips of one hand over his forehead. “It’s more likely than probability would seem to suggest,” he said at last. “I think that means it’s about as good a chance as we could hope for.”

“And if… you don’t?” He asked, his voice becoming more tentative. He couldn’t look up from his fingertips this time.

“Then… I have a lifetime of apologizing to do,” he replied grimly. “To Bull, at least. Not just him. It’s not right to leave him there,” he added quietly. “He’ll be much happier here, even if he doesn’t know it.” Cullen was nodding, fully in agreement with the sentiments. “But if that had to happen…” he let his head fall back on the pillow. “I suspect you’d tire of me quickly,” he added genially, his voice still morning rough and tight. Shivering, he pulled the blankets up.

“I can’t see it,” he rejoined gently, offering him a shy smile. Quiet reigned momentarily.

“Your shell is harder to crack than his was,” Dorian observed suddenly. “But you still have that same goodness inside. I admired you so much at first, you know. I mean, both you and him, in your ways,” he shrugged. “Then I realized how much he needed,” he explained. “And that’s where I wanted to be. You too,” he added, gently. “You have your work cut out for you when I go, you know,” he pointed out loftily.

“Oh?” His brows twitched curiously. Skeptically.

“Oh yes,” he nodded. “You need a good wife,” he said thoughtfully. “A good husband perhaps, I’d say, but I think you’re pickier about men,” he observed, waving to himself in a demonstrative full-body sweep, earning a chuckle, then scrubbing his palm through his facial hair. “You need a strong woman, with just a touch of sentimentality, and a heavy dose of self-sufficiency,” he nodded. “That Brielle’s a good sort. Or a less-intimidating version of Cassandra.”

Gaping, Cullen fell back on his second-best pillow. “Maker’s breath,” he complained, and Dorian chuckled. “Are you trying to set me up on dates?”

“You -” he cut himself off, closing his mouth, and blinked wide-eyed at him. “Do you want me to? I mean, I suppose I’m well qualified.” He squinted thoughtfully. “I’ll have to tell her you snore through your nose sometimes though.”

“I don’t snore!” he muttered peevishly. “And I can handle it myself!”

“Oh, and were you doing so before I came along?”

“You -” he growled and put the pillow over his face, groaning his exasperation into it. He felt Dorian shift in the bed, and hands were suddenly grabbing at his sides, fingers digging into his ribcage. Jerking and jumping under the bold attack, Cullen grabbed abortively for his quickly-roaming hands, choking on clumsy laughter as Dorian took advantage of his dropped guard, knocking the pillow askew. “Bastard,” he muttered.

“Only if you ask my father,” he grinned back, and it could have been his imagination, but he thought that the former _altus_ allowed his wrists to be captured, pressed back into the bed when Cullen rolled onto him. A long, hot breath framed his jaw as Dorian nuzzled at the stubble on his jawline, still a little sharp from his last shave. He clenched his fists, but he spread his thighs, and Cullen rolled his hips into the mage’s groin as he swiped thumbs across the sensitive insides of his wrists.

With impressive flexibility, his good leg rose, and his toes caught Cullen’s sleeping pants at the hem, pushing them down even as his own movements burrowed under the hem of the tunic. Shortly they were aligned, pressing hot flesh to heated lengths, kissing quiet and slow in the pale morning. He bore his weight down on the other man’s wrists, feeling the dampness of their skin as he rose over him, growling deep in his chest. Restlessly, the mage’s head rolled against the pillow, thrusting back up into him. He twined one hand around both of his wrists, the other hand dragging roughly down his body, then up as he pushed the tunic out of the way. His skin felt hot now to the touch.

Dorian loved to have his hair pulled, and a full-body shiver spiked down his body when Cullen grabbed a fistful, drawing his head back. A shockingly deliberate obscenity in Orlesian boiled up from the mage’s throat, followed by equally heated imprecations in Tevene. “Ohh, _pedicare me_ , Cullen - _volo esse tuus_ ,” he begged quietly. He didn’t know what it meant, but he sounded so _hungry_.

Tracing his fingertips over full lips, his breath hitched as Dorian took his two fingers into his mouth, tongue swirling around them wetly. Dark eyelashes lay on his cheekbones until he raised them enough to peek through the fringe at him. Withdrawing his soaked fingers from the mage’s lips, he dropped his hand to grasp the two of them, pale skin against dark thrusting into his hand. Dorian tugged at his grip but never really tested it, bucking willingly into his grasp. He paused them only long enough for a touch of oil that suddenly seemed to need refilling, and the two of them rocked together with quiet breaths until they spent, one after another.

Holding himself up over the thinner man with his weight on both hands, Cullen watched him catch his breath, his skin looking healthier with the flushed glow after lovemaking. He wanted to… to kiss him, maybe, or… he wished they could have a quiet breakfast together without having to get dressed and go out into the cold. A fireplace, a book in one dark hand, tea in one paler grasp. Instead, he threw himself to the side, sighing as he fell back into the blankets, letting the room finish settling.

“Hello to you too, soldier,” Dorian managed at last, and Cullen snorted, throwing the blankets up over his face. As if that would thwart him; instead Dorian slipped across under the covers and bit at his bicep playfully. “I think a bath is in order,” he declared. “For both of us.”

“If you think you can get by today with just a cat bath, I’ll have a private bath sent up tonight,” he offered lazily. He paused, tilting his head as he realized that, with the bed in this new position, he could see more of the sky. “Is it strange that I’m hungry now?”

“Strange? No; normal. _Good_ , rather,” Dorian praised him, peeking his face out of the blankets with a smile. His moustache still curled at the ends at this length, after he’d had the chance to fix it for the day, but it was cut more practically than it had been, coming from Tevinter. Just now it was rather flat. “Don’t ignore it, you need the stamina.”

“Clearly,” he muttered, “...as I seem to have taken a Desire demon to my bed.” Even as he said it, he felt weird about it; a clenching in his gut as what was supposed to be a harmless joke turned into a chilling reminder of the past.

“Surely you jest,” Dorian bantered back easily; the man was pretending not to have noticed, Maker bless him. “Desire demons are hardly so fashionable as I,” he fluttered the back of one hand dismissively. “They go about naked all the time, what do they know?” A nudge under his chin with a sharp nose. "Sorry, my dear; I did try to warn you it would be difficult to stop your new appetites once indulged - I simply didn't anticipate becoming the trigger," he explained, abashed. Before he could do more than groan, the mage chivvied Cullen out of bed, who turned about to haul him out along with for Junou’s breakfast.

That afternoon coming back from the small chapel by the garden, he almost forgot about the bath. Dorian was so badly shaken that it was all he could do to usher the grieving man up the ladder to his bedroom. Meekly, he let himself be pushed, or pulled, along, but he seemed helpless to maneuver himself. They'd spent nearly an hour in the Chantry following his conversation with The Iron Bull, before Dorian had been too cold to remain stubborn, and still he didn't know why. He managed to get the mage up the stairs and up his ladder, and stripped down to hide in the warm blankets, ‘ere a word would pass his lips. "Tomorrow is Wintersend," he sighed at last.

No additional explanation was forthcoming at first. Perhaps he was changing the subject? "Yes; aside from critical business, the Inquisitor encourages us to rest. So, what would you like to do?" He was chewing on the inside of his lip, and Cullen realized he might have to let this one go. "I've always loved Wintersend," he admitted quietly, perched on the edge of the bed, remembering past celebrations. "It's always like the start of something."

"Yes, I know," Dorian raised one hand out of the covers, fingertip wiping quickly at his eyes as he snuffled in a damp inhale. "Only this year, it is also an end."

"Oh," he replied softly, nodding faintly, because he got it now, of course. It was about the time Dorian had been encouraging him to indulge in an afternoon nap, so he stripped down to basics and slipped into the now soft-scented haven that his bed had become.

The part of him that still felt _awkward_ cropped up, unexpectedly. He swallowed the urge to apologize for something that wasn’t really his fault. After a while, Dorian moved closer, but his gestures were stilted and shy, as though he too felt the unspoken chasm between them. Regardless, he laid his head on Cullen’s chest rather delicately, sniffling just a little once and again. “I’m sorry for… being like this.”

“Hush,” he replied, practical as he had ever felt. This wasn’t something that could be easily controlled, after all. Pain was pain. He rested his right hand on the mage’s nape.

“You don’t have to put up with it, and you _are_ ; you cannot pretend it’s not uncomfortable for you too,” the Tevinter man pointed out. Cullen felt his eyes drooping shut with that soft, deep murmur. “...Thank you,” he added.

“Is it helping?”

“I would have to say it is,” he decided with a smothered, exasperated chuckle. “Cole hasn’t popped in on me in a few days, so yes.” Sighing deeply, he melted a little, face rubbing into the undershirt the Commander still wore. “Damnation,” he rumbled. “I was supposed to be at Skyhold for the Kennel Master,” he groaned.

“Oh. The dog,” he blinked his eyes open. “Bull told me.”

“In Matrinalis - forgive me, _August_ , I decided to cancel,” he mumbled, rambling now. “Everyone said, _Oh Dorian, such a shame, don’t cancel_ , you see. Because… I don’t know; I suppose someone thought the poor Tevinter widower should have a bloody _dog_ , like I’d know what to do with one. _Cullen_ was supposed to be the one who knew about dogs.” He sounded faintly bitter, and sighed with a gust of warm air. “Then Bull even said I should have gotten the damn dog instead of… all this,” he shrugged. “I suppose he had a point.”

“Well...” It was still strange to hear himself spoken of in the third person, even knowing it wasn’t himself, per se, but he managed to shrug. “Dogs have much to recommend them.”

“That is a positively restrained endorsement coming from a Fereldan,” Dorian rolled onto his back, which put his head on the Commander’s shoulder. “Everyone _fussed_ at me so,” he went on. “So I told the Kennel Master to come along anyway. Even if I… couldn’t bring myself to…” he licked his lips. “Then certainly there would be others. The Inquisition could afford it.”

“Still,” he murmured, his fingers sliding along the softest crease of the other man’s shoulder, which made him realize he was revelling in the texture of his skin - velvet draped over a strong, sharp core. “Still, it’s nice to have. Companionship... not having to fetch every damn thing that drops on the floor on a bad leg,” he pointed out, making the mage laugh softly. “And mabari will look after you,” he went on, solemnly. “For all the grief you give me, you need to be reminded to eat, and rest, just as badly.”

“What in the world will I call the poor thing?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, a fond smile tipping the corner of his mouth under the scar as Dorian glanced up. “My neighbors, as a kid, had a mabari named Carrot, but that was because when it was a puppy, it realized carrots were food, and also shaped like chew-sticks... so he dug up half their garden patch. It seemed to want to chew everything, even rutabagas.”

“I thought dogs preferred meat?”

“They can eat both,” Cullen told him. “You shouldn’t give them onions, garlic, or chocolate, but many other things you can eat are fine for the dog, even if meat is best.” He turned his head, brushing Dorian’s hair back from his face where it had escaped his half-ponytail. “Careful with them in the garden, though.”

“Oh yes, with all that copious amount of farming I’ll be up to,” he replied scathingly, drawing a scattered laugh in response. “He wanted to grow things. I’m sure you likely do too.”

“One day.” He slipped the fingers of his right hand into the mage’s dark hair, pulling him close enough that he could bury a kiss into the other side of his head, behind his temple. It felt unhurried; indulgent. It felt like something he was _allowed_ to do. “Seems like I’ve been saying that all my life; _one day_.”

“You’ll be okay, Cullen Stanton Rutherford,” Dorian murmured to him, sounding sleepy. “Settle this Inquisition business to your satisfaction, then you can say to yourself, ‘Why not today?’” He reached one hand upward, and pulled one of the necklaces off from around his neck. “Once you know what you want, that is - _why not today?_ ”

“Doesn’t that seem a little reckless?” He smirked at the ceiling, though Dorian didn’t see.

“When the day comes that you can’t answer the question, that’ll be the day, won’t it?” He sounded like he was smiling. The necklace in his hand was the heavy gold pendant.

He hummed thoughtfully at the statement. “...What exactly is that?” Cullen inquired.

“My ...birthright,” he responded. “A token that I was once a proud scion of House Pavus. It was laid inside the crib next to me when I was two days old, and other than a brief mishap in Orlais, it’s been my burden ever since.” Cullen reached up his hand, where the former _altus_ held it suspended above them. He touched the scarring where the chisel had marred the gold.

“And this…? Why?” he asked.

“It’s the law,” he explained. “When I was disowned, I lost my - my caste, for lack of a better word,” he explained. “ _Alti_ are descendants of the Imperium’s founding mages, and not just anyone can gain access. It takes bloodline and sponsorship of a house - and strong magic, if you’re to be taken seriously. It’s what makes - _made_ me nobility.” He lowered it into his other hand. “Because I’m no longer nobility, I can no longer legally be permitted to represent myself as such, should I work up the audacity to return to Tevinter.” The hand holding the birthright lifted and sank. “This just ensures it. Makes it clear I’m never welcome back to House Pavus.”

It was to ostracize him, it seemed. “Why do you still wear it, then?”

“...It’s mine,” he explained again, softly. “Just because I’m not wanted doesn’t mean I can surrender. But it… hurt me.” He was almost too low to hear. “It hurt him too. He held my hand, when we watched it struck. I tried not to think about it afterward, but it was always there. So he said…” Dorian swallowed. “He said he would carry it for me, this burden. He hated it, but… when I looked at it around his neck, it wasn’t so terrible a thing. He made it better, because every time I saw it, I remembered what I’d gained, rather than what I’d lost.” He gave a shaky laugh. “I mean, I’d already married him, but I sort of wanted to marry him all over again for that. No one else ever fought for _my_ happiness, as ...ridiculously sentimental as it sounds.”

“I… think maybe I understand,” he mused, and tapped the pendant gently. “I hope you don’t mind if I’m curious, Dorian - what are you, in Tevinter, then?”

“Besides an ex-patriot?” He snorted. “If I were to take up residence again, I could petition to restore my citizenship, but not my class. That would make me a _laetan_. Perfectly decent, hard-working middle-class mage citizens. In Tevinter, it’s still nothing to sneeze at - I can own property, living and nonliving,” this with a sneer, “I can serve in government and vote, if elections weren’t a farce; I could marry - but not a man - I could be drafted to fight in Seheron. I could own a business and take apprentices, within limits. Let’s not even start on the justice system.”

“Would you? Go back?” he wondered, stifling a yawn.

“To live? No. I don’t think so.” He sounded thoughtful. “But…” a speculative tone emerged. He shook his head and unhooked the catch, sliding the ring off the chain. “Queen Anora sent me a letter.”

“What?” Cullen asked, blinking down at him sleepily. “Who? Oh, Cailan’s widow?”

“Yes, the Queen of bloody Fereldan, my love,” he snickered fondly. “She proposed to me back in Harvestmere, you know,” he went on.

“Bullshit,” he chuckled.

“I swear on your curly little head,” he protested. “I mean, it wasn’t because she wanted to be married to me, mind you. Asking me - it was just for optics. But she made it clear she considered me a Fereldan citizen and her subject, and that she would come back to me in her sweet time. Well, she did.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “She… offered me a position.”

“Really?” Cullen turned his head, and gazed down at where he was fiddling with his husband’s wedding band, rolling the band up and down in his two fingers, to catch the light. “That’s amazing,” he praised gently, raising his hand to touch Dorian’s hair gently, feeling him still in surprise. “What sort? Did you accept?”

“Ambassador to Tevinter. Well, that makes it sound rather grand. Adjutant Ambassador, you might say? To leverage my knowledge of Imperium society, as well as my Tevinter and Inquisition contacts, to support Queen Anora’s diplomatic team, for the good of Ferelden.” Rubbing an imaginary bit of marking off the ring, he gazed at the light winking through the three stones. “It was heavily implied that, once established, she would be eager to arrange greater responsibilities for me. She must have a hell of a spymaster in her own right - I believe she even referenced the warm climate being an improvement for my physical condition.” He pursed his lips. “I wonder if a mabari would do well in Minrathous?”

“So you’re saying she’s offering you a way to go home again, under the protection of the Fereldan Crown,” he marvelled. “And she knows it, and is counting on you to accept.” An uncomfortable silence. “But... you didn’t?”

“It... angered me, frankly,” he replied. He was looking at the ceiling, and he sounded a little weary. “I thought she was being arrogant - as accustomed to that as I ought to be. Which, she is, a bit,” he allowed, tilting his head. “But it’s a practical sort of arrogance. After all, the rest of her diplomatic staff is miserable in the heat, and hardly speaks six words of high _or_ low Tevene. I’ve come to like Ferelden - don’t tell anyone - and in a way, it may be perfect for me,” he admitted.

“So why didn’t you say yes?” he asked quietly, trying not to push.

“Honestly, I think I was resentful because…” he craned his head to look at the Commander, who rested on the pillow above. “I couldn’t help but be selfish. I was tired, and… and I wanted to think only about my husband. About my losses.” He pulled his lower lip between his teeth, which made Cullen want to kiss him. He rolled slightly, and as he did, the mage seemed to divine his intent, rising to meet him. The kiss was lingering, but soothing. “I… need to move on,” he whispered, scant inches from his mouth, sounding bleak.

Even as he said it, his hand rose and traced the corner of the Commander’s jaw, with the back of his hand. His eyes were sad, like clouds about to break out in sunshowers. “And this isn’t helping you,” Cullen surmised, letting his eyes fall shut again, with a sigh.

“Don’t fret, darling,” he whispered, sounding downright musical, voice frayed soft as it had been when he’d sung him back to sleep. “You are a modern marvel. You don’t know how thankful I am for you.” He leaned his chin up to kiss the Commander once more. When he gave in, the ring slipped onto the next-to-last finger of the hand lying on his own chest. The ring’s enchantment picked up its task enthusiastically, humming warmth into his skin. _I am near._ ”Ah,” he whispered. “...so it _does_ work.”

He raised the now ringed hand, cupping the side of his face. “You are very tired, Dorian Rutherford,” he murmured, lips brushing lips as he spoke. “I would like for you to rest now.”

The softness of his voice, smell of his skin; the warmth of him against his ribs; all of it was a song of its own, lulling him to sleep. It was the mage’s turn to fight a yawn, burrowing against him with a peck. “Very well. But you will make good on your promise of a bath later.”

So he did, and realized mages could fill and heat the water without hauling tons of buckets. Dorian insisted he go first, so that he could warm the former _altus_ up when he was drying. Chuckling, he allowed the mage to perch on a small stool behind the head of the tub they’d hauled upstairs, like the small stool he’d had to use while praying in the Chantry, with Cullen kneeling at his side. He insisted on “properly” washing the Commander’s face and hair, and seemed to enjoy scrubbing the faintly-scented lather into his neck, jaw, and shoulders, while he leaned back against his chest.

“Now I’m the one who feels like a mabari,” he hummed. “Don’t expect yours to be so good about bathtime.” Dorian laughed at him. He enjoyed a hot bath while looking up into the sky, with the mage occasionally reaching in to heat it up again, poking at him here and there. After draining the water and refilling the tub, he watched the Tevinter man kneel next to the tub on his stool and wash his hair first. Curious, he helped cup hot water up over his hair, and helped him into the tub once he’d disrobed.

He soaked quietly, a little splash now and then reminding him that the mage was still awake. Meanwhile, he thumbed restlessly through a book Dorian had hauled up from the library, lounging on the bed. “Wait,” he asked, flipping through the pages. “Why doesn’t she just admit she’s the other fellow’s twin sister?”

“It’s intended to be a comedy, dear,” he murmured distractedly. “Farcical.”

“This is what’s funny in Tevinter?” he mused. When the former _altus_ was finished, he stood, and Cullen rose easily to help him out of the tub on his uncertain leg, wrapping him in a towel. Soap scented kisses lined his jaw in thanks as the slighter man dried his hair and body.

“What’s this?” Dorian asked, finding the Wintersend present left on the bed as he crossed the room.

“I wish I could take full credit, but a large, horned bird suggested you might appreciate something along these lines,” Cullen admitted, stepping on the towel on the floor to soak up what had spilled. “You don’t like using the other Dorian’s things.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Dorian chastised quietly, but he picked up the small glass jar, and untied the ribbon, prying open the stopper to sniff at the fragrance. “Thank you, Cullen, it’s very thoughtful - even between the two of you as it was. I’ll use it right now,” he decided, and perched on the edge of the bed, towel around his waist. With deliberate care, he dotted the lotion to certain parts of his face and shoulders, as well as his knees and elbows, hands and feet, rubbing it in with a small comfortable sigh.

It was possibly the most domestic he had ever been with someone - bathing, dressing and grooming, sharing meals at night. Climbing up onto the bed, he tucked his bare feet into the half-made blankets and watched Dorian apply the lotion. It seemed like that level of self-care should be a dainty sort of thing, but watching him do it, it was not. The way he moved was vigorous, and self-assured. When he was finished, he shivered once and scooted back to lean against him, lifting his scarred left leg to set the heel into the bed. He was careful to rub lotion into all of the scar tissue, giving the limb a wistful look and a light slap, as though he couldn’t feel the sensation very well.

Turning, he reached his fingers into the jar, and dabbed a couple of spots of lotion onto Cullen’s face with no warning. He exclaimed and pulled back, half-laughing. “Oh, you don’t take care of your skin,” he teased, and reached out to rub it in. Almond, and something faintly floral, like lavender maybe. “There you are, darling. Ladies love a man who is good at self-care. You need practice.”

“What if I don’t want to be with a woman?” He challenged, playfully. His thumb was working across the back of the wedding band he’d been left with, and Dorian’s eyebrows rose. Why was he saying this? What was this going to accomplish?

“I only care for your happiness,” was the reply, reluctantly hesitant, but unassumingly earnest. “But trust me on this one darling - if you want to be with a man, be sure to choose someone who bathes regularly, will you?” He seemed unable to help his own grin, judging by how it stretched over his cheeks broadly. “We Rutherfords have _standards_.”

Nodding as he bit back a grin, he curled his finger into the end of the long hair spilling over one shoulder. He brought it up to the light, and for the first time, he noticed a few threads of silver hiding innocuously in the dark fall. Raising his finger, he smoothed his thumb over the silky spool he’d twisted. Dorian was no older than he was, about thirty-three, soon to be thirty-four this year. It wasn’t unusual to have a few of these. Cullen himself probably was hiding a few in his own already-pale locks.

Something about it just made him wonder what it would look like as he got older. When the silver crept through his hair; when the wrinkles deepened and maybe softened a little next to his eyes. Would someone be next to him to note all of these changes? To guard his heart and watch his leg fail; to protect him from angry ex-comrades if he took the Queen’s offer? And what sort of person would it be?

“Will you be well, on the other side?” He asked, not sure what answer he expected.

“I’ll make sure of it,” he replied with a well-practiced air of confidence. “Don’t fret.”

“Here,” he made to take off the ring.

“Will you miss me?” Dorian asked him suddenly. His tone was half playful, and half forlorn. Cullen found himself fiddling with the ring self-consciously, and he nodded once, firmly, even though he couldn’t bring himself to look up. It was a moment before the other man could speak, and when he did, his voice seemed to be under some strain. “Then it would comfort me if it’s… not too onerous for you to keep it.”

“But, Dorian,” he raised his eyes to his face. “I couldn’t possibly…”

“The choice is yours,” he said, though with the fine, high rise of his brows, and the low heavy fall of his lids as he gazed down at the ring on the Commander’s finger, he looked more distraught than perhaps he realized. Already he recognized the pinch between his brows, the tightening of his face. “I would not force such a burden upon you.” He blinked a little, though he somehow did it without his lids ever really rising fully. “I hate that you are alone. You deserve to be surrounded with love.” He somehow found a smile inside, and looked up at him at last, though the expression was threadbare. “As I… can only love you from afar, it seems right for it to be with you.” His lips parted for a shaky breath. “But, if you dislike it…”

“No,” he said. He realized even as he said it that he felt a stab of something very protective about it. What sort of a man cherished a connection he could never have? What felt right in his chest felt like a kick in his gut. “No. I… it only seemed presumptuous,” he offered uncertainly. “It was your husband’s,” he repeated, somewhat ineffectually.

“There’s a tradition in Orzammar. That’s where these were forged, by the way,” he added, “... before they were enchanted by the Formari. In Orzammar, wedding jewelry for both partners is always made from the same ingots - metal mined from the same vein, gems cut from the same raw stones. Very symbolic,” an ironic lilt touched his cheek. “Perhaps the Maker wouldn’t be too angry if I left this for you to remember me by. Though I daresay, I am already quite memorable on my own.”

“Indeed you are,” he agreed, and wondered if he could convince Dorian to come back to bed. However, the mage smiled, and then turned to dress, all the way up to his fur-trimmed coat.

“I must check in with Dagna,” he said, offering a half-smile as Cullen watched him. “You, good sir, should go clear your desk. I’d have some of your time on Wintersend, if you will.”

He should have; he knew it. But instead, he found himself walking the battlements restlessly, feeling half-dressed wearing his casual clothes for once. Before he knew what he was doing, he had wandered across the barbican, straight like an arrow loosed, and knocked upon the door. The deep voice inside called gruffly for him to enter, and he pushed the door closed behind him.

“Nice look you’ve got going, Commander,” Bull glanced at him, closing the notebook he was writing in atop the desk. He realized he hadn’t thought to style his hair after the bath, and it was taking every advantage of the opportunity to curl freely in the evening air. Pushing it back self-consciously, he blushed when Bull lifted his nose with a frown, scenting the room. “Did Dorian use his lotion on you, or just rub all over you after?”

He expected irritation, or amusement, but got something halfway between the two. He didn’t exactly seem tense, but he didn’t seem as relaxed as he was accustomed to, either. “He says I don’t take care of myself enough,” he admitted, in a reluctant murmur.

Humming once, Bull turned away from his small desk and faced him. “Well, he’s not wrong,” he agreed, and Cullen lowered his eyes for a moment, pretty sure he flushed.

Then silence as The Iron Bull waited for him to speak. He took a deep breath, but it wasn’t deep enough. So he let it loose and tried another, eyes making it only about to the bigger man’s chin. “I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he admitted quietly.

Bull turned further and looked him over, in surprise. At last his eye dropped to the hand that would normally rest on his sword hilt, which was making up for it by fiddling with the ring. “...Yeah,” he agreed wearily, after a moment, letting out a deep sigh. “I can see that.” He reached up and rubbed the skin at the base of one of his horns. “I shouldn’t have told you to…”

“No,” he blurted out, looking up to see an uncommon troubled expression. “No. You were right. This isn’t to do with you. It’s not even any fault of his. It’s… me,” he confessed, teeth sinking into his lower lip. “I should have known somehow - not let my guard down.”

“Not sure how you could have known,” the mercenary didn’t really frown, but the skin around his eye tightened imperceptibly. “It’s true that that’s a big vulnerability of yours. You should just be happy he’s not an assassin,” he pointed out, in an attempt at levity.

“ _Maker_ ,” he breathed, not quite able to laugh. “Who’d want to kill _me_?”

“You’d be surprised.” He considered his options. “So, what now, Cullen?”

“What do you want me to say?” he asked, with a helpless little shrug. “Nothing has changed. He’ll do the right thing, and so will I. And… I’ll be glad to see my _friend_ back,” he added, with subtle emphasis. Bull nodded.

“For what it’s worth,” he hesitated. “We may have a lot to commiserate about in a few months,” he blinked, slow and resigned. “When my _Kadan_ goes back to Tevinter.”

“Are we…” he cleared his throat. “Are we good, Bull?”

A tilt of impossibly wide horns. “Shit yeah, Cullen. We both have good taste in men.” At the Commander’s snort, he amended, “...Alright, impossibly inconvenient taste in men.” He grinned. “But what a man.”

He smiled just a little, nodding. “I guess I just… I wonder how I can make it easier.”

“Don’t waste a second, and don’t spend any time on regret. It’s a good thing, and you’ll be better for it. You just pay with a little pain, right? Just like combat practice.”

“I’ll tell him you said that,” he smirked. Bull’s words didn’t change anything, but… knowing someone understood almost helped.

“I like my face, so I’d rather you didn’t.” He did jerk his thick neck to the side once, however. “Wanna drink?” He laughed and shook his head, reaching back for the door. “Nice talking to ya, Commander.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translator's Notes: (Disclaimer, all translations are unguided research. If you know my translation is incorrect, feel free to drop me a line!)
> 
> _"Pedicare me"_ \- "Fuck me"  
> Quick note about this: in Roman tradition, sexual acts were regarded as having heavy implications on the honor and masculinity of the perpetrators. In this instance, Dorian's words refer specifically to anal sex, which was viewed as more feminizing than heterosexual intercourse, but not so feminizing as the act of providing oral sex - which he would have been seen as the receiving party in, despite being the one to push Cullen up against the door earlier. :) This is why you may see different terms being used with similar translations in my notes; it's not absolutely necessary to HC Roman culture compliance to keep reading, I leave that to the reader. For more info, check out some literary analyses of _Catullus 16_ , the dirtiest poem in the Latin language.
> 
> _"Volo esse tuus"_ \- "I want to be yours"


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You have nothing to apologize for,” Dorian said, rather graciously, and for once, those words didn’t seem to come at a cost, or hide behind any lingering trace of bullshit_ altus _conditioning. “You do need to understand that what you offer to him is something he always wanted - but if he is to survive in Tevinter, he may be forced to become someone you no longer recognize.”_
> 
> In which we attempt to put things right again, and Dorian tries to express his goodbyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. Thank you all for sticking with us this far. We're heading into the final arc now. The events of this chapter take place between 3 Guardian and 7 Guardian 9:44.
> 
> Posting slightly early. Those of us watching the news in the US have had a difficult day. ~~I'm not sure if all this angst will make it better or worse, but at least it's something else to be mad at. :P~~

“Hey, good news!” Dagna popped up from behind the table, a bright grin on her fair features, hidden by a smudge of dirt. “Glad you stopped by this morning, Bull!”

“I like good news,” he replied amiably. “...Don’t I?”

“Yes! Well, still a work in progress,” she amended. “It’s not like I have Dorian under this sheet,” she said, pulling a protective cover off of the end of the table where her gadgets had been studying the rift for the past several days. Yesterday, this _other_ Dorian had taken morning coffee with Krem, and then gone outside to trim the crystal growth off of the rift, and spent most of the day with Dagna, then battered some practice staves with Bull when he’d been unable to sit still anymore, so he knew very well that the wrong _altus_ was still around.

“I mean, I’d be worried if he was.” He gazed warily at the assembled items on the table. One of them was the dragon tooth necklace Dorian had given him. He touched a fingertip to the smooth surface of it, fondly. Crystals, gauges… she’d rigged up some little arms that pinged around for some reason with no visible impetus. It looked like a slice of a mad laboratory. “So is all this stuff, uh… _doing_ stuff?”

The petite redhead giggled. “Silly,” she chided. “Yup! I’m seeing some interesting things, but it’d be a bit hard to explain. Some of it’s powered by magic, and these are memory crystals, they record the frequencies that these _other_ crystals resonate at, and then we convert it all -” she pointed, and picked up a hefty stack of books and papers from where the Tranquil normally sat. “Actually, I’m really fascinated by this project in another way,” she admitted, half pensively.

“Oh yeah?” he inquired idly.

“We’re practically building a new _dictionary_ to help us define the objective study of magic!” Dagna looked more excited than he’d ever seen her, eyes sparkling. “ _This…_ this is why I left Orzammar, Bull!” she crowed. “Necessity is the paragon of invention! Now that we _need_ to recognize how an artificial rift resonates, how it responds to different thaumaturgical input - and how to compare different applications of magic in a way that non-mages can understand - we’re finding a new _language_ can be designed on how to express the interaction of the Fade and the material world!” She sighed deeply. “And all the frequencies sound like _music_ ,” she grinned. “So pretty!”

He hated to be a killjoy, so he gave her a quick moment to savor that high before bringing her back down again. “Hey Dagna, I’m happy that you’re happy, but you have to know I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he quipped, letting her wear herself out until she looked abashed.

“Sorry!” she chirped, looking only a touch embarrassed. “Anyway. The rift does have natural cycles, and I’ve asked Dorian to stop by and try to connect with it each day so that I can get some responses from the rift. It definitely is connected to him,” she nodded decisively, “...but not in such a way that it’s fully dependent on him. Like, if he died, it would still be there?” she tilted her head, “...if that makes sense.” He nodded. “But the rift can tell when it’s Dorian using a spell on it, versus any other mage. We’ve been experimenting with it for several days, in the mornings, and monitoring it during other times of the day. I think we’re seeing a few other spikes that could be attempts to tap into the rift magically. The hope is that we will be able to tell if it’s Dorian. Uh, _our_ Dorian. The _other_ Dorian. _Your_ Dorian!” She shook her head, grinning.

_Like he’s trying to get back._ “Okay... then what?” he asked.

“Then, we have to catch it in progress,” she explained. “Once we can identify it, I _hope_ ,” she stressed, “...that he will be clever enough to create a pattern. If both Dorians are attempting to connect through the rift at the same time, then our current theory is that it is possible to _deliberately_ swap them.” She glanced down at his necklace. “Assuming that there’s a connection between the halves of your necklace is a bit of a leap, from an experimental standpoint,” the Dwarven woman hazarded, “...but I think we can trust the fact that Cole can see things that the rest of us might miss. Variable accepted!”

“Right,” he agreed, feeling fairly unenlightened. “So when do you think we can make the attempt?”

As he watched, one of the crystals on her board flickered slightly, and she frowned, flicking it with one finger encased in heavy leather gloves. “Is… is this broken?” she muttered, and pulled out a box, a thick reinforced apron, and strong tongs. “Stand back Bull, there’s lyrium in these.” He watched her pull the flickering crystal out for inspection, and replace it with a different one. As she sealed and locked the box under the table, she looked up at him and smiled. “A few days, I think.”

_That’s forever_ warred with _How does any of this shit work?_ In his head, leaving him frustrated and restless, shaking his head. As he watched, however, Dorian crossed the muddy upper courtyard toward them, his coat buttoned up at the waist to keep his hem out of the muck, and something small was clutched in his hand. There was still that momentary leap of his heart when he saw the man coming, before it settled down toward neutrality. “Morning Bull, Dagna.”

“‘Vint,” he replied with a small smirk. The man looked reasonably good of late. He seemed to be resting and taking care of himself. Though he was still underweight, some of the gray sadness about him had dispersed slightly. Dorian didn’t find anything odd about the old nickname - likely his own Bull had called him that at one point. He shifted his shoulders to re-settle his coat. He was wearing Cullen’s clothes, and he had the Commander’s teeth marks low against his throat.

Certainly the last week or so had been a journey of self-discovery for Cullen, if this and their awkward conversation a few days ago had been any indicator. He still felt shitty for assuming that the Fereldan man could be as casual about this liaison as Bull himself might have been. If he’d been a better friend, he’d have urged Cullen to draw a clearer line between them. Of course, he hadn’t been with the two of them alone. He didn’t definitively know that that would have helped anything.

Still, they both looked better for it. He only hoped that would hold, for both of their sakes. “Widdle, my dear - _kaffas_ , Dagna darling,” he corrected himself with an exasperated shake of his head. “I wanted to consult you about the rift key, if you recall. Do you have time?” He dangled his birthright pendant, chain wound around the fingers of one hand.

“Ooh, that’s the key?” Dagna blinked up at it. “It looks old.”

“I resent that. This thing is as young as I am,” he sniffed. “I enchanted it to be the key to the rift, but now I’m concerned that it no longer fits our needs. The rift has spawned its own rulebook,” he turned and surveyed the crystalline structure, eyes narrowed against the brightness of the day, following the motions of the soldiers patrolling the perimeter. “I’m concerned that we may need to harness something closer to the level of power of the Anchor to facilitate the exchange. I wanted to get your thoughts?”

“Of course!” Dagna covered the table again with the protective cloth. “Why don’t we go speak to Ser Alexius about it?” She suggested, and Dorian dipped his head, flashing Bull a smile as the two trotted off, talking magic like a second language. “So you don’t remember what it felt like to go through the rift…?”

At least he could be satisfied that everyone involved seemed to be working toward the goal of getting his lover back. He would normally burn off some energy hitting training dummies, but now they were off-limits under the rift. Instead he merely glared up at the monstrosity, laying a hand on the dragon-tooth necklace on the table through the sheet. “Come home, _Kadan_.”

He kept an ear out, but respectfully declined Adaar’s offers for short trips to go out and kill things. He wanted to be present in Skyhold, unless there was something urgent, until his mage was returned. Adaar kept him company for a bit, though she was a bit reserved. Cassandra had smiled and patted his arm sympathetically - always a sucker for a pair of separated lovers - but oddly enough, the one he found himself missing the most was Varric. The Dwarven man was one of the closest ones to his own age, and was chock-full of banter and anecdotes. Given a few ales and a deck of cards, Varric could have kept his mind off his troubles ‘til dawn.

Instead, he was putting Kirkwall back together, and Bull was stuck here, with the Chargers rattling restlessly around in the half-empty fortress like a box full of rocks tumbling down a mountainside. He thought from time to time on what Krem had said about Tevinter - about how Dorian could lead the charge into change, but the path would be paved in blood.

He had few contacts among the Qun these days, more like Red Jenny’s “friends of friends” than anything else. The timbre of the rumors he heard had changed a little, but he was here - not out there. When he had been out there, on missions over the past year or so, there had been alarming swells of quiet, and then a surplus of odd chatter before it died down again.

The Iron Bull feared that the spillage of blood that would grease Tevinter’s wheels would be the result of a larger conflict in the north; a conflict that he himself had once been at the very epicenter of. He’d thought for a long time that the loss of a single _Ben-Hassrath_ agent on the Storm Coast had been an inconsequential loss to the Qun, regardless of what he’d been in the decade before. The Qun had lost before, and greater, when Southern Rivain and Antiva fell to the Andrastians in the Exalted Age. They lost more every day on Seheron.

_The tide rises, the tide falls; the sea is changeless_.

Now a small part of him feared that his defection, in such a public and spectacular fashion, had become internally symbolic of a greater problem his people faced. Just maybe, they would take it out on the rest of Thedas in other ways. It was the first time he’d considered the idea that his choice might directly, or indirectly, impact Dorian’s future in Minrathous.

Quite frankly, it scared him shitless.

Bull ruminated on this as the days passed, with the mages hard at work and the warriors feeling mostly useless, beyond patrolling for demons and regular Inquisition deployments. Cullen had a bad day; they didn’t see him, and the tower was mostly abandoned by the flocks of recruits that ordinarily saw themselves in and out. Dorian seemed to be the one seeing to his food and care, turning away scouts but accepting messages, slipping out to confer with Dagna and Alexius when he was certain the Commander rested. He stopped at the Herald’s Rest and played a couple of hands of Wicked Grace with Bull, Krem, and Stitches.

“Tomorrow,” he said at last, when the idle banter at the table died down. “I don’t know if we’ll be successful,” he chanced a look up at Bull over the edge of his cards, holding his gaze for a long moment. He paused, as though he’d gotten distracted mid-sentence, but there was a brief, melancholic look of fondness that passed through his face; a softening of his lower lip as though he would smile if he were less anxious or regretful. “But, Dagna and Alexius and I feel we are ready for our first attempts to interface with the rift.”

Folding his cards into a neat stack, the _Tal-Vashoth_ surveyed him. Krem and Stitches, wisely, kept silent, Krem counting his winnings as if he didn’t already know how much he had, and Stitches sipping his drink as he tried to catch the attention of the barmaid for a refill. “So, Dagna knows enough to time up your… attempts?”

“There’s a certain amount of initiative required, you see,” he explained, rearranging the cards in his hand, with a tilt of the head. Had two different combos running, at least, but neither of them were stand-out, Bull deduced. “We think there’s a superb chance we’ve built an actualized model of when the -” He watched the stares of the other three at the table begin to glaze over, and stopped himself with a deep-throated chuckle. “Right,” he remarked. “All you need to know is that we are all exceptionally brilliant - intellectually astonishing, in fact - and every major university from Minrathous to Markham would collectively soil themselves in ecstasy, had they only the opportunity to participate.” He folded his cards and sipped his ale. “Dagna is going to write a paper,” he added. “You should buy her a drink sometime.”

“Never seen Pavus stop himself from explaining his magic mumbo-jumbo,” the other Tevinter man at the table muttered. “Or share credit.”

“Ah, mistaken identity,” he tutted back, smiling down at his cards. Stitches raised an eyebrow and finally took his turn. While they were waiting for him, Bull watched the mage turn and wave across the tavern to one of Cullen’s lieutenants. Confused, the woman glanced around before deciding the former _altus_ was, in fact, greeting her, and rose to approach.

“Good evening, Brielle,” Dorian gestured at her with his ale. “Good to see you.”

“Milord,” she replied uncertainly.

“Oh,” he replied, startled. “I suppose you and my counterpart aren’t particularly close, then,” he surmised. “Well, none of that with me - you’re practically family on _my_ side of the rift. _Our_ Brielle meant a lot to us,” he added, and sipped his ale to cover a lapse in his composure. “How’s your mother doing with the, ah, rheumatism? Your sister is looking after her?”

“How did you…” she digested his prior words at last. “It’s hard on her. Can’t convince her to move inland, you see,” she shared cautiously, arms behind her back awkwardly.

“I’ll go on a limb and suppose your own version of myself didn’t share that old Tevinter palliative for rheumatism with you?” Eyes widening, the brown-haired woman shook her head. “Well, I’ll leave it with Cullen for you - I’ll write it up as soon as I get back.” He folded his cards and pushed back from the table. “Speaking of, I’ve got to get back to him, or he won’t eat at all tonight - you know how he is.” A small smile thawed her expression, only slightly marred by a knowing wince. “Take my hand, will you? Teach these frail men how Wicked Grace is really played,” he smirked, slipping his cards into her hand as he slipped away from the table.

“Might as well join us, if you’ve a mind,” Bull offered, kicking Dorian’s chair out from under the table to allow her access. “You can take Dorian’s pot.” The mage sidled out of the Chargers’ nook behind the staircase, tipping his head to everyone at the table.

“Ask her about Thursday nights in basic training!” he called back, and Brielle instantly blushed. Chuckling, Dorian swung his staff from his back to ease his saunter out of the tavern. Brielle flickered through his cards after nodding at the others.

Krem suggested dealing the hand out again, and apparently he wasn’t the only one whose cards sucked, because everyone agreed. “I don’t really know what’s going on with Lord Pavus,” Brielle said at last, “...but he sure seems more… dunno, my mother would have said _‘grounded,’_ maybe.”

Bull let Krem catch her up on the whole rift story, and she scratched her head where her brown hair was knotted back into a messy bun. “My brother’s looking after my mother, though.”

“Yeah, there’s some differences,” Bull told her, then prompted her into telling the basic training stories instead. He kept half an ear out, laughed in the appropriate places, and bought the table a round. After a few more hands, he excused himself and went outside. The sun was setting, but it was still early. The winter sun in the far south was very brief, compared to his memories of the short muggy nights and long, sweltering days in Seheron. He found himself working harder and harder just to be his usual jovial, approachable self with such cold, dark days around. He wondered if Krem felt the same way; he knew for a fact that Dorian did.

After a proper dinner, he went out to stand on the walkway between the rotunda and the Commander’s office, just looking over the interior of Skyhold, hoping to settle his thoughts. The rift slowly grew brighter, comparative to the sunlight fading, and Dagna was still at work in torchlight. He turned his head when the sound of a door opening nearby caught his ear, just in time to witness Cullen shutting the southern door to his office, falling into step behind Dorian as they meandered a few feet down the battlements in tandem.

They were close in height, he realized; he’d never seen them in such proximity before, with the same fur lining their shoulders, though it sat differently. Dorian’s pace was not the smooth prowl of Bull’s lover, but Cullen’s stride lingered next to him. For all his conscientiousness, it was clear from the way he carried himself that he still had pain and tension in his head and in his joints. He heard the mage speak softly to him, but even the _Tal-Vashoth’s_ keen ears could not make out the words over the wind and distance. He talked with his hands.

Cullen turned easily, his squarer jaw distinct in the silhouettes they painted against the setting sun; the light flickered off his loose waves and unshaven face, even as its feeble rays sought to settle into Dorian’s skin. They stood at the crenelations, and Cullen crossed his arms over his unarmored chest, while the mage leaned one elbow against the stone. He spoke back, a single word, with a faint duck of his chin.

A nod from the dark-haired man, who turned away to survey the shadowed routes down into Orlesian territory in the failing light as the wind dropped. The silence was thick between them, and then Dorian turned halfway back toward him, eyes on eyes. “I’ll miss you,” he heard faintly across the distance; simple and unadorned, bereft of the need for prevarication and excuses. At some point, Dorian Rutherford had learned not to expect to be hurt here. Bull’s chest stung, wondering if his own _Kadan_ would ever be that open with him.

Intently, the Commander’s eyes watched his face, though Dorian couldn’t keep his composure enough to keep looking, and he swallowed hard as he looked over the wall again. “And I you,” Cullen rumbled back, from somewhere surprisingly low in his chest, his arms falling to his sides. “If it doesn’t work, I will be here,” he shrugged, uncomfortably. “Until it does, I suppose.”

“Tell me you will give some thought to your future?” Dorian inquired, and his tone carried the gravity of a dear friend, to a casual observer. “You’ll not pine for me,” he teased, reaching up to flick a curl back from his forehead.

Cullen snorted, the look he usually got across a chess board. “You’ve monopolized it, I’m afraid. I should best leave it to the expert.” The injured knee rose enough to nudge the Fereldan man in the lower thigh, and it was Dorian’s turn to cross his arms as he leaned on the wall. “Were you so overbearing to your husband, pray tell?” Some amusing expression exchanged between them.

“The poor thing hardly knew morning from evening, so swamped in paperwork as he was,” Dorian shrugged a little. “Remember to look up and take a breath once in a while.”

Nodding, Cullen took his turn with the landscape as Dorian watched him more closely. “I’m more concerned about what you will do now. You don’t have to stay in Ferelden, you know - he wouldn’t have expected that,” the ex-Templar noted. “You could live comfortably in sunny Antiva - I’m sure Josie would be delighted to have an Inquisition friend so close. Or, you could gain some notoriety in Nevarra amongst the _mortalitasi_.”

“I do _live_ for notoriety,” the mage snickered, and ducked his head, shuffling his bad foot as he laughed it off. “I don’t know. I suppose I’ll talk it over with Mia, once she’s done boxing me about the ears,” they both laughed. “She’s a bit tired of losing brothers.”

“Or you could take Queen Anora up on her offer,” Cullen pointed out, a curl of a smile sneaking onto his face. “Not the marriage one - the diplomatic one. I’m sure you’d love to see your father’s face turn gray with outrage the moment he’s required to show any sort of professional courtesy to you. Ten-to-one odds that diplomatic immunity will extend to the dog.”

Dorian laughed so hard his voice echoed off the stone tower, one hand slapping palm-first against his cheek as he tried and failed to rein himself in. “I’ll be…!” He broke into a fit of laughter, ruining his reply at first. “I’ll have the dog piss on his favorite rug!” Another laugh rang out, and he sighed at the end, wiping at his eyes. “Stop making it sound like fun - spiteing all of the Magisterium still means I have to watch my drinks at the end of the day. Ahh, Cullen…” he sniffed in the cold air, and gazed up at him fondly. The two of them had swayed closer into one another’s orbits as they spoke. “So what terribly Fereldan name should I give the dog?”

Thoughtfully, the Commander considered it with a finger scraping the edge of his chin, ending in a sudden bright grin. “Rutabaga?”

The way they laughed made it clear that it was a joke others wouldn’t get. Bull turned his head away, looking up toward a few feathery wisps of cirrus clouds in the sky. He remembered what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that laugh, that warm look. The wind started to pick up again, and their further conversation dissolved under the renewed whistle of Frostback air as it picked back up. When he looked back, they were more earnestly engaged again, and Cullen raised his hand, pulling the ring from his finger and offering it back to Dorian.

Accepting it, Dorian looked down at the piece of jewelry, then looked back up at the man as though hurt. His brows knit as he asked a question, and Cullen frowned in concern, his gaze flickering between the mage and the ring he cradled in careful fingers. Neither of them noticed the ex-Templar rubbing his now bare finger with the other hand as though it hurt, or was cold without the ring.

After a few minutes of what looked to be stilted conversation, Dorian took the ring to his lips and kissed it, letting his eyes rest on it a moment as he looked at it in the last of the light. Then without saying another word more, he reached forward and took Cullen’s hand, and put it back on him. Unresisting, the Fereldan man watched him do it; curled his fingers around Dorian’s when done, and took the former _altus’_ left hand over his right.

Swallowing, he said something still too low for the _Tal-Vashoth_ to hear, raising his eyes, and Dorian’s profile softened and fell mournfully, four hands clutching tighter. The dark-skinned man forced his shoulders to relax, letting their hands fall. When the Commander spoke again, he looked up, and their eyes caught. He raised the back of his left hand, and spoke briefly once more, and when he did, Cullen reached up and caught his face in both hands, thumbs smoothing back over his jaw as though he were something precious.

Bull had been leaning, convincingly casual, against the wall of the walkway, arms crossed loosely over his chest. He knew they’d gotten involved, but when he saw that gesture with his own eye, however - caught the way Dorian’s eyes fell shut and his lips parted - he found the sensation of irrational anger and disbelief welling up in his chest. He wasn’t accustomed to feelings of true jealousy, having spent so many years prior steadfastly avoiding the kind of entanglements that would inspire that level of connection. It was painful, uncomfortable, and he started to see red, before he snapped his eye shut and forced himself to take a deep breath.

_Not my Dorian,_ he reminded himself; _not my Kadan._ But still, even knowing that, Cullen could look at him like that - look into those same eyes, that same face, and see someone he desired, even as he professed no draw toward Bull’s own lover. Some part of him refused to believe that the Fereldan man could look at him and see anything but the Dorian they knew.

When he opened his eye, Cullen was leaning forward, his lips very light against the corner of the former _altus’_ mouth. Dorian’s own lips parted further, but he was somehow very passive in the Commander’s hands, as though knowing he should pull away and wanting to be closer at the same time. When Cullen pulled back, Dorian’s eyes opened to watch him, expression shuttered. After a moment the other man leaned forward again and kissed him in earnest - for once, seemingly heedless of any potential audience.

Catching him about the hips, Cullen took some of his weight, bending him backward just a little as the mage’s arms went around his neck, mouth opening under the blonde-haired man’s onslaught. Turning, Cullen pressed him to the stone they had stood at, letting Dorian’s long-fingered hand run down his bicep to rest in the crook of his elbow. His own hands had crept into the mage’s open coat, petting or at least gripping him against his lower back. The responsiveness between them was… he didn’t have a word for it, but the way Dorian’s mouth fell open, panting, his expression one of deep pain when Cullen placed a benedictory kiss between his brows, was an image that would likely stay with him for a long while.

Fingers clutching into his partner’s sleeves, Dorian took in a breath so deep it moved his shoulders. Then he said something, and at the new angle they stood at, Bull could almost read his lips. It looked a lot like the words _take me to bed_. As though finally becoming aware of the soldier down the wall who was benevolently, politely, consenting to ignore the two near the tower, the Commander nodded, taking one hand on the mage’s elbow to pull him back into the office, trip for fresh air and sunlight quite aborted.

Retreating from the bridge with a feeling like he was hit in battle, Bull found himself standing at the nook in the library where his lover had spent so much of his time over the last three years. Coming up the stairs, he could almost convince himself he would see his Dorian at the top - buckles and straps, light on his bare shoulder, glimmering rivets in his gloves and the decorative chasings on his boots and armor. Head tilting back and reaching up to slip a volume from its place on the shelf, before bending his head to examine the cover, the nape of his neck bare and tempting.

Blinking away the vision, he stepped into the alcove and touched the back of the chair. The fabric smelled of him the way Bull’s sheets had smelled of him; long body bare and inviting in the light when he’d finally convinced him to stay until morning. Smiling to himself, he traced his fingers over the spine of the book left on the arm of the chair. Historically, he didn’t like to spend the whole night with casual flings himself; he did it, but he didn’t sleep well when he did. In his own case, it was less a concern of public shame and more an avoidance of assassination.

Eventually, he stopped having that problem with the _altus_. It had meant more when the Tevinter man finally _stayed_. The human mage went to sleep smelling like The Iron Bull all over and inside, warm and pliant; it became too much trouble to disentangle himself, for Dorian to stumble down the staircase in the cold night air, when they could just warm one another and feel safe.

That was the problem, he realized - he hadn’t known that there were degrees of safety. He’d felt safe around Dorian more easily than he should, perhaps because he had a way of seeing and testing a person’s limits. He took new steps carefully, and the mage had never failed him. Dorian felt confident with his physical safety around the mercenary; his reputation, in the south at least, was of only moderate concern to him these days, and what part of it did worry him, he trusted Bull with. What he didn’t know was if Dorian truly trusted him with his heart - with his love in the future. Did ‘ _Amatus’_ speak of present affection only, or something more?

“Moping here in the dark, Bull?” Adaar surprised him, and he fought not to whirl on her as he took his hand from the book. She was leaning all loose-limbed against the corner of one of the bookshelves, coming from the direction of the Rookery. “Sudden interest in scholarship?”

Her tone was dry, and with her dark skin he couldn’t see her face that well in the gloom, only the faintest shimmer of light on her eyeliner. “Nah, Boss,” he replied. “I hear we’ll be full-on attempting to make the Dorian Exchange starting tomorrow.”

An affirmative grunt came from her, laid with a deep rumbling undertone that he was convinced most other races couldn’t fully hear. Elves, maybe. Sera must have loved falling asleep on that ample bosom, listening to that purr. “I’ve given the go-ahead. I’ll be standing by, but I don’t particularly want other mages involved in this,” she explained. “Too much risk.”

“We can’t risk you either,” he pointed out reasonably.

Junou scoffed. “Don’t you worry about me,” she replied. “For once, just think about yourself. And your Dorian,” she added with a hint of humor.

“Gonna be a little selfish and take you up on that,” he decided.

“Then drag him off to bed and get your shit sorted when he’s back,” she went on, arms crossing. “Whatever it’s worth, the Inquisition won’t be what it is forever. Get your feet under you.” She sounded a little frustrated when she muttered this last.

“Bad news from Red and Josie?” he asked, sympathetically.

“Nothing unexpected,” she raised one hand enough to wave faintly. “Only that we saved the world just so that the people in it could tear it apart again. Sometimes I’m not sure why we bothered,” she half-snarled. “You ever just have the urge to turn your carriage around and just start laying down the law everywhere you go?”

“Ohh, Bad Inquisitor time?” Bull laughed.

“Forget the Anchor; they’re going to call me _Iron Fist_ Adaar if they keep it up.”

“Iron Bull and Iron Fist - we could take that show on the road,” he snorted, and she snickered along with. “If you really forget why we went through all that bullshit, go ask Sera. She’ll know. Something about the little people, I expect,” he added, smirking.

“Yeah,” she relented, and he could hear the smile in her voice, see the flicker of twilight from the window on her horn caps when she tilted her head. “She’s something, for all her flaws. Keeps me young when I want to be old and bitter.” She jerked her chin, her head turning as she looked toward the stairs. “Now you, get a drink or go to bed.”

Smartest thing she could have suggested, maybe. He nodded to her - more like a Tamassran every day, dammit - and saw himself off. Nursed a drink with the boys and then off to bed to wake up early. When he woke up in the morning and readied himself for the day, he realized he was hungry.

On the battlements, Cullen stood looking over the barbican, but he was all by himself. Looking every inch the Commander today, he rested his hands on the hilt of his sword; strapped into his armor and fur, and not a hair out of place. He supposed they’d have made a striking pair together; like if the sun and the moon were to cohabitate in the sky. When Bull emerged from the door of the room he had claimed, the Fereldan man reluctantly drew his eyes from the mountainous terrain, and nodded respectfully at him when their gazes met, turning to join him courteously. He had to admit it; for a human, Cullen Rutherford was a bit dashing, if tragic with it.

“Are they starting?” he asked as the man approached. Tipping his head silently, the Commander confirmed and then turned his gaze to look at the rift. He could see them down there - Dagna, Dorian, and that must be Alexius. Several Tranquil had joined them as well. Adaar was nearby, and Sera hovered over the scene as well as she could without getting in the way, by virtue of peering down from her window.

“ _Love you Tadwinks!_ ” she called out at some random and inappropriate moment. Several of Cullen’s soldiers turned their faces away to hide a private smirk or snicker, and he had to reflect that Sera’s buffoonery served to humanize the Inquisitor as much as Varric’s antics ever had.

The two turned to walk down the stairs into the upper courtyard, companionably. “Keeping the ring?” He asked lightly, unsure why he even felt the need to pry. It was like tonguing a sore tooth, in a way. Bull sort of regretted asking it immediately.

“Ah -” Cullen blushed, and one hand scratched behind his head. “You know about that?” he was wearing his gloves today, and it was hiding under the leather, noticeable if you knew what to look for. “I thought it mightn’t be appropriate, but… Dorian seems to, um. Disagree.”

“Well, if you ever get called to visit Halamshiral again, you should wear it,” the _Tal-Vashoth_ suggested lightly, in high humor. “Might beat off a few young maidens with it.”

“I’m more concerned about the Dowagers,” he muttered, proving himself ever the strategist. Bull laughed a little as they reached the ground, and advanced toward the group there. The mages and Tranquil seemed to be wrapped up in Dagna’s contraption, and the soldiers kept up their loose patrol around the rift despite the fact that demons had stopped materializing weeks ago.

Adaar stood back and surveyed the rift with unperturbed stillness. Her hand flickered a little, and she shook it unconsciously before squeezing it behind her back. She nodded at them and Bull returned the gesture. He imagined the rift probably stirred her instincts to close it still.

Cullen was looking up toward the second floor of the tavern, with a puzzled scowl on his face, and took a deep breath. “Sera,” he called up in his best drill instructor voice. “Did you just spit at the rift?”

The Elven girl startled, heels thumping against the roof hard enough to dislodge a roof shingle. “Tchyeah! Spittin’ distance!” She cackled for a minute. “Think I can hawk a loogie through the Fade?”

Bull angled his horns back to look up at her. “Why, you wanna spit on some demons, attract their attention?” She gave him a _blergh_ face, tongue out and eyebrows all screwed up.

“Disgusting,” Cullen remarked, but if anything he sounded almost fond. As they watched, a pale figure loomed behind her in the window, under a dark-brimmed hat. “Don’t startle, Sera, but Cole is behind you,” he called.

“ _Augh!_ Creepy!” She swore a few choice epithets Bull hadn’t heard in a good while.

The mages leaning over the device stood up, sort of looked at one another in affirmation, and broke up their knot, turning to regard the rift almost collectively. Dorian, in particular, seemed to be anxious, and took a deep breath. Carefully, he patted himself down. He checked his belongings, his hip pouch, his jewelry, some papers slipped into his inner pocket, even his clothes; then he glanced at Cullen’s hand as though remembering the one thing he was deliberately leaving behind. Gray eyes flickered up to meet the Commander’s golden ones, and a fleeting smile touched his face before he glanced over to Bull.

Dagna looked up at last and met Dorian’s eyes, nodding significantly. “We’ll begin monitoring now,” she said, and he ducked his head back.

“Thanks, Widdle,” he whispered. Apparently she’d gotten used to it; she only grinned.

“It may be some time,” the Tranquil who stepped up to Dagna’s side intoned stoically. “Please be ready and conserve your mana.”

Coming over to them, Dorian clasped his well-decorated staff between both palms, planting it into the dirt and letting it cross his body in a casual lean. “I suppose we have no way to know when the last moments will be,” he observed, somewhat uncomfortably, and cleared his throat. “The both of you know how I do _adore_ waiting.”

“About as much as you love plaideweave,” Bull remarked.

Dorian snorted aloud. “I was telling Cullen; I’ve only strongly refused two things in my life - my father’s blood ritual, and Evelyn Trevelyan’s _audacity_ in suggesting I wear plaideweave.” Both warriors responded with ill-disguised smiles, patiently tolerant. “How dare she. Clearly she had suffered a knock on the head that day and confused me for Sera.”

“And getting the wedding officiated by Mother Giselle,” the Commander supplied.

“Three things,” Dorian grumbled in acquiescence.

“I’m sure he just wanted it done by the rules,” Cullen murmured soothingly.

Raising his chin sharply, Dorian Rutherford looked down his nose at the Fereldan man. “I have already won this argument once, Cullen. I promise you that if you want to take up the crusade, I shall triumph again, you foolish man.”

Cullen’s smile was a private thing, and Bull felt a little like an intruder. That sensation made him a little impatient - it wasn’t as though _these_ two would be getting married. After a moment, Dorian’s posture relaxed, and he returned the warm smile, albeit faintly.

“Bull,” he said suddenly, turning to the _Tal-Vashoth_ man with careful regard. “I’m sorry that we haven’t spent as much time together as I would have liked. I apologize for being rather distracted.” The smallest twitch of his eyebrow gave the irony to his smooth countenance. “I want you to know how grateful I am to have had the chance to see your face again, and to talk with you. I missed you, and all your, eh, _helpful_ advice,” he admitted, his fingers lacing around the grip of the staff. “And your patience. Your solidarity - your _Kadan_ is lucky to have you.”

Gruffly, the mercenary picked up one hand and rubbed at the base of his horn, not knowing what to say. “Dorian,” he began, but didn’t know what he could add beyond this. What he hadn’t expected was the stab of misery that went through him. He had been busy feeling resentful when he could have been more inviting. “I’m sorry about everything.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Dorian said, rather graciously, and for once, those words didn’t seem to come at a cost, or hide behind any lingering trace of bullshit _altus_ conditioning. “You do need to understand that what you offer to him is something he always wanted - but if he is to survive in Tevinter, he may be forced to become someone you no longer recognize.” There was a vague anxiety behind his forced stoicism, and he cleared his throat. “In the interests of being one’s own champion, I urge you to remember that every _altus_ is a man or woman of an inner and outer self, and judge him accordingly in the days to come.”

This was the man Cullen fell in love with, he realized - and he understood it better than ever, because it was also the man the _Tal-Vashoth_ mercenary fell in love with - without the spiky shell which the need for survival in Minrathous had taught him to grow. He nodded at last, and found himself summoning a small smile. He’d learned something from this man, and was going to use what he learned to make his own Dorian as happy as he could, even if he had to support him from afar in the future.

“I’ll do my best,” he promised, and mocked a punch at him that just barely tapped his elbow. “As long as you do the same. Go make us proud. And Ferelden too, if you can find the time,” he added carelessly, to the former _altus’_ snort.

“ _Find the time_ , he says,” the brown-skinned mage was shaking his head, raising one hand to rub his thumb over the scar on his jaw as he laughed quietly. He lifted one hand and placed it over the _Tal-Vashoth_ ’s heart for a long moment. “Give Cremisius a thousand kisses for me - he’ll hate it.” Then his eyes rested lingeringly on the Commander. “And _you,_ Cullen,” he reached out one hand and rested his palm on the trailing edge of the fur draped on his chest. Their eyes held for a moment, like they’d said most of their goodbyes the night before, or this morning. “ _Vitae benefaria, et memento mei, Mea Bellator_.”

Stepping in, the mage pushed himself up onto his toes, staff digging into the dirt, and laid a light kiss on his cheek. He pulled away before it could look anything more than fond, only to find the Commander’s hands on his hips. Like yesterday on the wall, Cullen reeled him in boldly, lifting the mage lightly to lean forward against his chest, and crushed their mouths together. Dorian’s lashes hit his cheekbones, his fingers loosening on the staff and coming to rest on Cullen’s shoulder and neck. The kiss was so involved that Bull could almost feel the heat rolling off of them. Nonchalantly, he reached forward and snagged the staff before it hit the dirt.

_Shit… is that what we look like?_ he wondered, watching along with about half of Skyhold as the man who resembled his _Kadan_ was kissed within an inch of his life by the Commander of the Inquisition army. Sera started wolf-whistling up above and clapping, and Cole poked his head out of the window next to her to gaze down on them, head tilting. A bunch of assorted gazes looked nervously up at The Iron Bull, as though expecting him to have some objection. He waited long enough to make it clear he wasn’t prepared to step in, before raising his voice. “Gonna charge admission here in a minute.”

Just as many of them blinked and looked away, the two broke apart, disentangling themselves carefully. Both were flushed, but still looked longing. Dorian adjusted his moustache by force of habit as Cullen went back to his stiff stance, clearing his throat behind his fist. Bull handed the staff back to the mage with civility. “Got that out of your system, kids?”

“Never,” Dorian taunted, not bothering to stifle a broad smirk and a wink that made Cullen smile behind that same fist. The mage turned and walked away with the stride of a younger man, staff held loosely as he walked without it, the other hand yanking his birthright up over his head.

“What did he say to me?” Cullen muttered, taking his still-pink lower lip into his mouth to suck it dry in the chill wind.

“Dunno it all,” he shook his head. “But the first bit was _goodbye_.”

Cullen’s eyes were dark with pain under an expression that locked away all the longing, reluctance, and anxiety he felt.

Minutes passed, and those minutes turned into an hour. That hour turned to two, but neither of Dorian’s lovers saw fit to depart. The former _altus_ began to pace, his stride somewhat shaky as he relied more and more heavily on his staff. Dagna perched on a chair brought to her by one of the Tranquil, and Dorian fiddled with the birthright pendant in his hand. At last, the Dwarven woman sat up, eyes flying across the dials and the glowing crystals before her.

“ _Dorian! Now!_ ” She cried, and the mage whirled, the trinket in his hand thrust up toward the rift as he called upon his mana. The focus on the staff glowed, and the pendant shone brightly in his hands, an intensifying green light as he thrust it up. Adaar, who had been standing back by the stairs with Leliana, took several strides forward to monitor more closely, and in case she was needed. Beside him, Cullen shivered as the magic pooled.

Incandescing slowly, the rift soon blotted out the morning sunlight, as it had on the morning it appeared, the pulse of it speeding up slowly like an alarmed heartbeat. For differing reasons, Bull and Cullen took in their own anticipatory breaths. Cullen stepped forward unconsciously, like it was all he could do to hold himself back. The amulet glowed bright enough to leave spots in the eyes, but nothing triggered between the rift and the mage.

Frowning, he lifted his staff and held it between his empty hand and the one catching the amulet, parallel to the ground as the mages had done on that first day. Focusing intently on his goal, the man’s forehead began to bead in sweat. Adaar crept up to stand behind Dagna.

“Dagna, is the other side still…?”

“ _Yes_ ,” she replied sharply, checking one of the Tranquil’s charts in one hand while she compared a dial reading on the panel she’d built. “At least for now.”

Junou turned and strode over toward Dorian, keeping a healthy distance back from him as she put up her palms, reading his mana use with a puzzled expression. “What’s happening, Dorian?” she asked him, eyes flickering up toward the rift and back down to the mage.

“It’s…” he licked his lips, shaking his head with a scowl. “It won’t… catch,” he complained. “I can _feel_ it, I can feel someone is touching it - accessing it - but…”

Adaar put up a hand at last, trying to mimic his position, only with the use of the Anchor. It made an effort, but sputtered in her hand, and she had to snatch it back, hissing. Was it Bull’s imagination, or did she look decidedly more pale afterward? The Inquisitor backed - no, staggered away. Sera scrambled overhead.

“Bull!” She cried. “Catch!” He barely had time to turn before a bundle of blonde Elf was flung down at him from above. Staggering back under her weight, he felt Cullen steady him with a hand against his back. As soon as he righted himself, Sera was down on the ground, running to her beloved Tadwinks.

“She left boot prints on me,” he groused to the Commander’s inattentive profile; the man pushed him back up until his weight was settled, and then threw him off impatiently. They both turned back toward the activity. Junou was recovering, and she leaned on Sera more heavily than she probably realized when she pushed herself up to full height.

“Dorian, stop,” she ordered, and the Tevinter man bit back a reflexive snarl, almost visibly reining himself in as he lowered his staff and amulet, looking back at her.

“We may not have much time -” he argued.

Dagna interrupted. “It’s gone now.”

“The plinths,” Adaar replied, gesturing toward the devices they had installed to prevent demons forming with each rift cycle, after the mage arrived. “We don’t feel it this far out, really, but they’re dispelling your attempts. I _could_ force the Anchor through, but the results…” she shook her head.

“ _Fucking hell_ ,” Dorian snarled, twirling his staff to slam blade-first into the dirt. Pushing both hands back over his hair, he turned first away, then paced back. “ _Fasta vass._ So they have to be dismantled before we can do anything.” He gestured to them rudely as though they could comprehend. “And I didn’t even think about it,” he sighed. “I am… sorry, Inquisitor.” He raised one hand and scrubbed his fingertips back and forth over his forehead, grimacing.

"We all made that mistake," Junou replied, no less irritated with herself than the Tevinter man could claim at the moment. "It'll take some time to uninstall them - we could just break them, but it seems wasteful." She glanced over at Bull, who sighed deeply. "...and if we don't do it correctly, they will still cause problems next time."

Dorian turned to say something, and his knee buckled. Adaar caught him just a beat before Sera could catch up. Stoically, he thanked her, standing and settling his coat in an effort to settle his nerves.

"Inquisitor," Cullen stepped forward, clearing his throat. "I'll call the construction team, and get a squad on rotation on the plinths right away. In the meantime, can I suggest that you and Dorian get some breakfast?" He glanced at the mage significantly.

"Only if you do too," Junou replied, pouncing on the opportunity. "I swear, does no one _eat_ around here?"

"I do, Boss," Bull spoke up. "But uh, not today though. Dagna, come with," he called. "You can do that later!" Sera grabbed Adaar’s arm and dragged her off toward the Herald’s Rest for a tavern breakfast.

The rest all squeezed into a somber group at a table at breakfast in the Great Hall, and Dorian and Dagna muttered magical epithets at one another throughout toasted butter loaves and bacon and oatmeal. The mage looked waxy and distracted. Cullen took Dorian’s bowl when he seemed disinclined to eat it, and Bull watched him mix in a touch of milk, syrup, and butter with two spoonfuls of mashed berries, and stir it all around before sliding it back next to his plate. It took about six bites before he realized what had happened and glanced up to meet the Commander’s eyes with the quirk of a soft smile meeting the golden-hazel eyes over the rim of the Fereldan man’s coffee.

A scout approached their table with a note for Cullen, and he nodded thanks as he looked it over. “It will take at least four or five hours to deconstruct the plinths,” he shared, glancing at the three of them. Bull stole a strip of bacon off of Dagna’s plate to be annoying, and she nudged him with an elbow before taking something off of his own. “Dorian, you look like you could use some rest. You may as well - there’s little enough to do until then.”

Nodding wearily, the mage stood. “I need to borrow some paper, Cullen,” he was already saying, sounding distracted as he turned to walk through the rotunda. His pace was stiff, and the Commander nodded to them and rose to follow him. Bull sighed impatiently and looked down at the Dwarven woman. “Think they’d let me just knock the plinths out with my axe?” he wondered. She laughed sympathetically, shaking her head, and patted his bicep as she rose.

He could think of a thousand and one things to do to fill the time, but none of them were things he wanted to do. Instead he ended up buzzing around Dagna, doing shots with Sera, playing a bullshit card game with his lieutenant, and at one point, Rainier actually invited him out to spar. It may or may not have been an intervention inspired by conspiracy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys saw it here first - the terrible events of #Bacongate9:44. Please talk to your _Tal-Vashoth_ friends about acts of banditry against their Dwarven companions. This has been a public service announcement.
> 
> P.S. Come thirsty next chapter.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dorian's voice rose as his hands turned into fists, but his shout was strained. “You think the_ same way _about protecting others - protecting_ me _. At the_ expense _of yourself, and it’s not fair, because_ I fucking needed you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, pretty much just smut okay? Happy MLK Day!
> 
> (Non-US people, smut is legit not how we celebrate MLK Day.)

For the first hour or two, Dorian took up his desk, writing page after page of prose. He didn’t bother to pry - kept himself busy with arranging to be unavailable for the rest of the evening. Studiously focused, the mage barely seemed to keep from scowling down at his writings. At last, however, he sealed them up and tucked his letters away.

Cullen gazed at him from across the office, seeing a sharp, dark moodiness in his face that he had only very rarely seen from their own ordinary Dorian. One of those times, he’d admitted it was his birthday, though it was clear the confession had been unintentional, and he looked somehow both lonely and disgusted with himself for bringing it up even inadvertently. Mildly, the Commander had wished him well, but had declined to push his boundaries any further on the topic, earning a look of gratitude. He wondered if Bull had sussed the mood out of him; the next day he’d been a different person.

“I suppose I’m in your hair for a few more hours,” _this_ Dorian now allowed slowly, at long last, in the proper diction of his northern dialect, but there was something stiff about him as he stood, one hand twisting his wedding band on the opposite side. He turned away, peering through the small window behind the desk, with a tilt of his head.

“Whatever it is that I think of you,” he began awkwardly, approaching slowly until he could stand behind the slighter man, just within arms’ length, “... it’s better than that.” Dorian said nothing, and Cullen licked his lips carefully in the cold winter air. He didn’t know which would win the battle of will between the difficulty of getting the right words out, versus the desire to have the mage in bed with him again. _One last time_ , part of his mind whispered viciously.

“Dorian,” he began carefully. “I hope you won’t find this too forward, but... I want…”

“Too forward?” the other man’s smirk, glimpsed in profile, was fake, he knew.

“You know what I mean.”

“I find I rather do not,” he quibbled back, and the sound had an edge; combative, almost. Or… unsettled. Uneasy. “Perhaps you should spell it out for me, darling.”

“Maybe you would know if you stopped interrupting,” he pointed out, perhaps a bit defensively, but keeping his voice as tactically mild as he could.

“The little lion has teeth,” he purred, and Cullen reached over to turn him around, hands on his shoulders. Dorian’s voice cut off abruptly when the Commander rested gloved fingertips over his lips, tracing the shape of his surprised expression.

“Dorian Rutherford,” he fought off a shiver as he said the man’s name. _My name. Mine._ “You’d best come upstairs, or you’ll just have to fuck me on this desk,” he supplied, fingers curling against his jaw. “Maker knows what a hardship that would be for you,” he added drily.

Something dark, almost angry-looking swept over his face. The mage leaned closer, breath hitting the Commander’s face as he growled, “Take that fucking armor off, Cullen.” The order issued from his throat and through Cullen’s veins as though he’d imbued it with lightning.

Despite himself, his hands shook a little as he moved to obey. Dorian tossed off layers of clothing, then moved to check that all the doors were barred, like it was an old habit. Moving in only his thinnest layers like a slender wraith. When the ex-Templar finished tossing his pauldrons and gorget on the top of the pile, twisting his neck and shoulders freely, he turned to the mage, who stood almost stiffly, half in a shaft of sunlight, watching him with a sharp face.

“It didn’t sit well with you today,” Cullen breathed quietly, stuffing away a few important or breakable items from the top of his desk. “You’ve become a man more of action, it seems,” he teased, more tentatively than a summer breeze. Standing somewhat easily today in the warmish evening sun, the displaced mage appeared as Cullen was accustomed to seeing - the tall, proud _altus_ version of himself, holding his frame sharply upright. “You were… very compelling out there.”

“Ridiculous,” he snapped back, lifting his chin.

“Don’t be unkind,” he chided lightly, though that only made the man more annoyed. “Dorian,” he leaned back against the desk, reaching out both arms wide. “Come closer.” As he finally gave in, the ex-Templar was able to fold the darker-skinned man into his arms. He felt stiff and jerky at first, hands coming between their bellies as though he meant to keep them pressed apart. “We have so little time,” he said, feeling his breath reflect back from the mage’s warm skin as he pressed close to his ear. His chest felt tight. “Let us not waste it? Please?”

“How many times,” he began, muffled. “How many _fucking_ times do I have to say goodbye to you?” Dorian demanded weakly, mouth buried into the stubble on the Commander’s throat. Deliberately not speaking of his husband, he went on, “If not today, then tomorrow; if not tomorrow, then -” he sucked in a breath, swallowing hard. “I can’t… I _barely_ did it today! I can’t _do_ it again tomorrow,” he swore, something in his voice cramping miserably.

That sharp, haughty _altus_ tone had gone from his voice almost completely. “You’ll do it as many times as it takes,” he replied staunchly, palm spreading between his shoulder blades, voice burring a little with his own distress. “I know you. You’re stronger than you think.”

“You _don’t_ ,” he insisted, his voice hitching sharply. “You don’t know me at all - I’m not so different from the man who used to drive you crazy across the chessboard. He -” his voice faltered when Cullen put a hand up to his head, and pulled his hair free. When it fell around his face, he buried his nose in. “He did everything he could to keep you out - to keep _everyone_ out. There wasn’t any room inside him for anyone, not without something getting broken,” he tilted his head back and looked up toward the crumbling floor of the bedroom above.

“But he let The Iron Bull in - a literal bull in a china shop,” he pointed out. “And you let _m-_ your husband in,” he went on. The mage said nothing, but when he tightened his arms around him, Dorian became softer in his arms. “Perhaps it’s like packing a crate of eggs. It mainly matters what they are packed with, and how they are handled.”

“Ridiculous,” he said again, but without venom this time. “If so, then that makes you, and my husband, something very soft indeed.” Cullen pressed his nose into a spot behind Dorian’s ear. When they slept next to one another, he had learned that a snuffle here made him laugh, and so it did now, though it earned him a testy shove as well. “Such an agreeable and clement Commander of the Inquisition forces.”

Pulling back, he curled both hands around Dorian’s waist snugly. Leaning back just slightly on the desk put them eye-to-eye, and he suddenly found himself struck with all the similarities to the man he knew - the same nose, the color of his eyes, the cut of his cheekbones, that charming little mark by his eye. It made him feel a little stab of bashfulness, to see his friend there, in his arms.

Then he looked again, and he saw the austere warmth in his gaze, the scar on his jaw, the subtle change in the tone of his skin, and the way the loss of weight had redefined his temples and jaw. He saw the faint stretch of his lip in a smile he couldn’t quite hide when he watched the Fereldan man examining him, and the knowing, intimate heat he tamped carefully down behind his expression. He liked the way the mage carried himself when they were alone - a quiet, steady confidence between the two of them that echoed like a more mature cousin of the brash, swaggering _altus_ who always distracted and flirted and flaunted his magical prowess, though it sprung from the same flame.

“I like you like this,” he blurted suddenly, seeing one dark brow curve upward curiously. Ah, good to know that marriage didn’t make one a mind reader. He wondered if it would be insulting to explain - _you’re the best things I like about a person I already liked_ \- and instead he floundered his way into a different embarrassment. “It seems so strange that I never imagined… us,” he admitted. “Having you here, it’s like you were made for me.”

Maybe… that might have hurt Dorian, causing his own chest to twinge in answer. A flicker of light in his eyes, a strained edge to his half-smile, a sheen in his dark lashes which may or may not have been excess moisture. “I know the feeling,” he admitted, his voice low and velvety in the fading light. “But Cullen,” the way his mouth folded around his name, _Maker_ , “...you have to forget that. We don’t exist in this world.” The words carried the sting of self-flagellation more than a reprimand for his fairer half. “We don’t exist. This is - this is a mercy; a miracle. These are those so-called _mysterious ways_ the Maker supposedly moves in.”

There was a touch of cutting humor to it, his eyes settling in around the Commander’s throat when he swallowed. “I don’t want to forget you.” He swallowed again, hoping it would make his voice less strained. _I don’t want you to go,_ he realized, a cold, clawing grip seizing him through the settling warmth. Perhaps he felt it before, but now there was a burst of panic behind it; part of his brain trying to wrap around a problem he didn't fully understand, to _fix_ it. He brushed his now bare left thumb over that beauty mark accenting his lover’s right cheekbone, gritting his teeth to keep quiet.

“Don’t fret, darling - I’m unforgettable,” he smiled one of his rather more dazzling grins, though it didn’t last long. “In this case, we both know what’s _right_. It is, ironically, no longer a theoretical philosophical debate. If only my old rhetoric professors could see me now,” he joked, then sobered. “And you…” his turn to breathe through whatever closed his throat. “You’ll finally live the life you deserve. Do you hear me? Hard work - because you would never let yourself take things easy - but you shall certainly find companionship on your own terms, even if no one else understands. Find _purpose_ , _Mellitus_.”

He leaned in, and the kiss he gave was full of flavors Cullen never knew the names of, had never tasted in his own mouth before Dorian happened to him. “If you ever think of me,” the Tevinter man mused as his lips slipped free, “...you will think back and wonder at the madness that took you over in these days,” he breathed against his mouth.

“Untrue,” he cupped the back of his skull, trapping him close. “I know exactly what madness this is,” he drifted his lips against his, let his tongue slip to trace the scar on his jaw, pressed a bite under the soft flesh there. “I think one can only feel this madness once in a lifetime.” _And somehow, mine has been saved for you._

Tight-voiced with self-loathing, the mage scoffed, scolding him gently, “You will do so much better than me, love,” he was digging his fingers into Cullen’s shoulders as his head fell forward. “You deserve to have someone your family can whole-heartedly approve of; someone who will bring you honor - who can be more than just a…”

“None of that matters,” he demurred, realizing abruptly that it was more than mere platitudes; it was true. Those things had mattered once, but now he realized that they were not goals to aim for, but merely side benefits of choosing a person of quality as a partner. Dorian seemed to feel he could not provide them. His husband had clearly disagreed. “I want…” _you_.

Dorian was covering his mouth. “Not another word,” he whispered sharply, the dark, commanding tone back in his voice, though it was not without a strange, bruising tenderness. “Another word and I swear I will turn around and walk out of this office.”

Holding his tongue, he let the long brown fingers on his mouth lay a path for silver eyes to follow, loving the way the Tevinter man’s skin glowed in the last, long rays of winter sun. “Alright.” he shifted back, sitting on the desk. “I want… I want you to ride me on the edge of this desk,” he whispered, feeling Dorian’s hands tighten in his tunic. “I feel good with you. I’m going to -” _miss you,_ his throat locked up. “I want to remember you like that,” he said instead.

Chin lifting, the mage pressed open-mouthed kisses up his throat - so hungry, always starving to be touched. Cullen wanted to leave some kind of mark on him; something permanent, something to take back with him. _Something that says you were mine for a moment._ “I thought you said you wanted me to fuck you.”

“I…” struck dumb, he realized he _had_ indeed said that, but he hadn’t been thinking of it in that fashion. Swallowing, Cullen thought about the way Dorian had felt around him, under him, when they’d been intimate previously. Wet with oil and spend, soft muscles fluttering tight around his fingers and his cock - what must it feel like from the other way? To be so full? Whatever it was, he remembered how the moans he’d drawn forth from mage had lit him on fire. “I’ve never,” he admitted, his lips feeling numb as he reminded himself he’d started this because he wanted to _know_. “But - yes. If that’s what you want…”

Hands on his ribs, raking gently downward and making him shiver. “You have no idea the things I’d be begging you for, or to _do_ to me, if I were being honest,” he taunted, but there was a longing in him, showing through like a crack in the foundation.

“You didn’t need to hide it,” he said, but they both knew that he would have spooked, early on. His soft-heartedness only earned him a kiss on the cheek and a bite on the clavicle. He found a breathless laugh bubbling out of him. Who knew? This secret language could be communicated through kisses and bites, not just eyes and smiles. His resistance had faded long ago, and caved again when he found himself whispering, “Alright, Ser Rutherford. Teach me something new.” His heart beat hard and joyous when he said it, and Dorian pulled back to gaze up at his smile, looking struck.

Tracing the shape of his face with a finger, he waited for the mage to come back to himself. It was a long wait, and he seemed suddenly… scattered. Defenseless, even. It was worrying, honestly. “How about,” he suggested gently, “...you go upstairs and get the new bottle of oil?” With a sharp nod, the mage stepped backward, a few times, blinking to collect himself as he turned and ascended the ladder.

Taking a deep breath, Cullen pressed his hands to his eyes, which were prickling suspiciously. Without Dorian before him, he felt the start of an emptiness in his chest that was both hollow and yet heavy at once. Sniffing in the cool air, he pushed all the pieces of confusion to the back of his mind, rubbing distractedly at the side of his head where a headache had threatened but never fully manifested during the day, and began to undress.

It was a few moments too long before he at last heard the quiet step of the former _altus_ ’ boots at the top of the ladder. Perhaps he’d also needed a moment to compose himself. When he slid back down to the floor of the office, Cullen looked up from the only thing he was now wearing - the ring he was twisting around his finger - and managed to find a smile for his mage at the look of flat-footed surprise, coupled with arousal in his eyes from across the room.

“ _Leo formosus_.” He stepped away from the ladder, fingers brushing across the rungs until he moved out of range - but even then, his empty hand didn’t fall. Rather, it drifted lightly down to his side, his steps slow enough to disguise the fault in his stride.

Form cutting through the flickering shapes of sunlight, Dorian’s eyes slipped over his body, lingering here and there as he forced both palms back onto the edge of the wood. One fingertip reached out and touched his lip, tracing the scar that bisected the one side. That fingertip drifted down his chin and his throat, down his collar. A bit of nail was applied as it glided down his chest and belly, making him jerk unevenly under its path. “ _Volo tu, Amatus_.”

“Are you... going to tell me what that means?” He asked at last, his breath faint between his teeth. It was the first time he’d asked; he rarely pressed for translation because he already felt enough of a fool around the man. This time he had to know, however, because looking into Dorian’s eyes was like being fed to a conflagration, intense and searing. The smile that lengthened across his face was coy denial and promise combined. Fingers on his forearms - nails scraped around his wrists where his hands gripped the edge of the desk.

Settling between the Fereldan man’s parted knees, he latched onto his collarbone, nibbling wetly, then blew his breath across it - hot air, cold room, goosebumps prickling over his skin and making his nipples harden as he sucked in a quiet breath. Bending forward, the mage lingered with kisses over his chest, making him flinch with sudden bites. Responding sluggishly, he felt himself thicken against his thigh.

He let his head fall back when the other man rolled one nipple against his tongue, slicking his thumb briefly with saliva to tease the other one. Sharp little jolts of pleasure arced into him when the mouth on his skin nipped at the nub, flat of his tongue rolling over it soothingly. The other was pinched, making him shiver.

“ _Volo futuam tu_ ,” he growled low, shifting his hips forward until hot skin met warm, soft leather, hard against him through his clothing. Hands gripped his ribs, sliding around his back eagerly. Rings bit into his skin, fingertips pressing the shape of scars here and there; his tongue lapped up the length of his sternum before ripping a kiss from his unresisting lips. Cullen gasped around his tongue and pressed against him, quietly expressing his want.

A hand lifted below his knee, jerking him upward from the floor and back onto the desk. Dorian’s fingers dug relentlessly into the tendon in the back of his thigh, just above the knee, massaging and sending little frissons of stimulation up into his groin. By the time he swallowed his nerves and let himself fall back on the desk, his stiffening flesh fell heavily against his lower abdomen.

Making a pleased sound, the mage pressed a palm onto his chest, as though to push him down when he was already down, or to soothe him. What he didn’t expect was that his hand would be _hot_ to the touch, like he’d just pulled it from a steaming bath. The goosebumps he was already experiencing prickled further and spread over his skin - magic, and it was making his whole body feel warm and quickened, as though they made love next to a roaring fireplace.

Part of him drew up short - teeth against his stomach, a tongue tracing another scar, these distracted him, but part of his brain mulled over whether he would, _could_ , allow magic to be used on him. But it was _Dorian_ , he reasoned, eyes clashing with silver orbs peeking up at him to judge his comfort. It felt good, and gentle, and -

A small whine broke out of him, forcing his eyes shut, as he was taken into his partner’s mouth again, blowing his thoughts away. He seemed to enjoy the act, and Cullen would hardly deny how good he was at it. Lips parting, he swallowed and licked some moisture back onto them, and down below Dorian mirrored his action, tracing his frenulum with such exquisite care that he felt a cautious trickle of heat flood through him. His muscles mostly went looser, but his hips lifted in response.

Debauched on his own desk, where he would have to sit and work tomorrow - pretending to all of his men and comrades that he hadn’t been spread out moaning like a whore on this very surface the night before. Blushing, he bit into one curled hand in embarrassment, as though somehow all those scouts and soldiers would look at the desk and hear him after the fact. Even as he shied away from the idea of strange eyes on him, he found his hips pressing upward again into Dorian’s mouth subtly, letting a fresh shiver of sensation wrack through him.

 _What would that be like? To be watched together?_ Humming softly, the Tevinter man turned his head, and Cullen’s length thrust into the warm side of his cheek, giving him a sudden silky, taut pressure all around the head of his cock that made him leak a little into the other man’s mouth. Dorian pulled back long enough to swallow and run his tongue over his lips before going down again.

When he was fully upright, his length was released from the other man’s tongue, though he did run his lips down along the shaft ever so softly. Cullen clenched all his muscles as he shuddered, and struggled not to make a sound - something strangled and audible happened in his throat despite himself. A low noise of pleasure was pressed into his skin further back between his thighs, and Dorian pushed up on his other leg as well, now, lifting them both over his head as he bent down and mouthed at his balls, greedy and barely restrained.

“Hold your knees up for me, darling, yes,” he cooed, his voice unusually rough, more so than their foreplay should account for. “ _Tam dulcis_ ; a little higher,” and his fingers ran freely over the curves of his rear, burrowing beneath to push his back to curl further. “Perfect,” he breathed into the sensitive inner skin of one thigh. “You’re so perfect,” he mumbled vehemently, and sucked a new bruise into the flesh, and Cullen felt his face flush - the location, the position, the words, the touch of magic and desire - he was burning, boiling. It didn’t even feel real - he’d surely wake up any second, alone and desperately aroused in his cold bed sheets. Dorian’s exhale stirred the sparse pale hairs on his legs, and it gave him another tremor.

Tongue tracing back behind his balls made him so self-conscious - yes, he had bathed, but he’d never imagined Dorian licking him so intimately. His whole body jerked when something cold and wet touched his rear, and a hand settled on his lower abdomen to soothe him. “Only a clean cloth from upstairs, dear,” he assured gently. “Sorry to startle.”

He jerked a nod the mage probably couldn’t see, his fingers readjusting their grips, having left white marks pressed into his own calves. Standing, the Tevinter man watched him with a gentle smile, his hand still moving below, like he wasn’t performing such an intimate and embarrassing task. “You don’t even know how beautiful I find you like this,” he said, his free hand sliding up over one pale knee, somehow finding and pressing the sensitive spots beneath his kneecap that made his entire leg tremble. “You’re sweating, you know. Your hair is trying to curl,” he laughed softly, with such warmth that the room itself seemed brighter. He averted his eyes as the cloth became quite familiar with him, before being laid aside.

His fingertip drifted down over the entrance to his body, and Cullen jerked unconsciously, swallowing hard and rolling his head back and away. His hips wanted to buck, though toward or away he wasn’t certain, but his grip on his knees ensured his motion was arrested. Finger dry, Dorian teased at the oversensitive muscle lightly until he stopped jumping so much, his shoulders and abdomen finally starting to relax.

Dorian’s hands left him, and the desk chair was dragged around so that he could kneel in it on his good leg. As soon as it was in place, his thighs were being pressed up higher, his back rolling, and a hot, wet mouth descended on him. He jumped again, but not nearly so much as he had before all the teasing. The flat of his lover’s tongue roamed from the base of his balls, back over that sensitive spot between that he didn’t know the name for, and left a trail of moisture over his clenched muscle. When he probed at it gently with the tip of his tongue, Cullen found his body curling uneasily, his abdominal muscles tight like strung wire.

With his partner’s tongue tracing the shape of his entrance, he felt flickering sparks of pleasure making his whole torso jolt. His cock hitched and so did his breath, his legs wanting to spread but unsure how while caught in his own grip. There was an awkwardness to it, but not a single thing about it felt any way other than exciting. Dorian raised his shoulders and neck to check on him, caught his blushing face, and grinned as he leaned back down.

A hot exhale on the tender flesh, an adoring swipe of the tongue turned firmer, and pointed, sliding wet and soft into him before curling. Cullen breathed a soft _oh_ , eyes closing in eager mortification when he felt drops of precome tickle the head of his cock as they pearled down to splash on his stomach. Another bright flutter of pleasure arced through him from the firm tongue pushing at his gradually-loosening flesh, he felt himself start to give slightly.

Remembering how Dorian loosened on his fingers in the bedroom, he did his best to try to relax, despite how strange and sensitive it was; despite that grim and incredulous part of his brain that had been on hold for the last two weeks, asking himself _am I really going to let this man… have me?_ Grateful to hide his face, he found his knees were high enough now that he could sort of lock his hand around his opposite wrist, and when he did, the mage spread his cheeks open, rubbing temptingly at him with one finger before resuming his assault. Cullen shuddered at the friction of his fingertip, rocking slightly while his breath came in shorter pants.

“Dorian,” he murmured restlessly in the wake of that relentless penetration, without knowing what he was asking for - more? Or to stop? His skin vibrated and warmed from within, a drop of precome sliding over his ribs. Dorian’s mouth covered the entrance of his body completely, slickly wet, but not unpleasant; sensitive, but not ticklish. At the sound of his name, the other man withdrew, and touched his wrist.

“Knees, _Mellitus_.” He blinked owlishly down at the mage for a moment. “Up on the desk.” Finally understanding, he pushed himself more fully up onto the desk and released his legs, taking a full breath with some relief, and turned over to push up with his palms. “Just like that,” he praised, and ran a hand from his sacrum up his spine, pressing gently between his shoulder blades.

Quite unaware, he realized as he settled that his cock had grown heavy, throbbing fuller than even when the Tevinter man had used his mouth on it before. Moving behind him at the end of the desk now, Dorian parted his cheeks and continued his teasing. Cullen buried his head into the wood, feeling the flush of heat from his forehead down through his chest. He’d never envisioned being treated - being _consumed_ \- in such a way, and imagining the picture it must make caused him to cringe, even as he bent his spine eagerly to receive it.

 _Oh_ , he realized as Dorian’s tongue slipped into him much more deeply this way. Oh, that was quite nice - _ah_ , the way it curled, flickering over the sensitive rim, tugging gently, a short suck against the skin there waking his nerves further. The heat of it burrowed right through him into his cock, and he realized that, although he probably couldn’t come this way, it made him feel restless and heated, wanting more, and he was starting to drip against the battered wooden desktop. He spread his palms on the wood, taking a breath of cooler air desperately as his body opened up eagerly.

“Yes, my love,” he heard softly, the words spoken nearly right into his skin, a soft buzz of his voice, tickle of facial hair, between licks. “Just like this. Oh, just look at you,” he said reverently. _He’s enjoying this_ , Cullen thought in mute astonishment, realizing that it was turning Dorian on in different ways than it was doing for him. The mage’s hands shifted, still pressing him open, but palms spread over his arse so that his thumbs could brush the edge of his entrance. A sound that couldn’t fully engage his vocal cords began in his throat, limping out into the air in a needy whimper he could hardly credit to his own mouth.

Open wider than he ever had been, he bit into his own arm, feeling exposed in a way he’d never imagined. Dorian’s tongue used the opportunity to bury itself deep inside him again, moaning into his flesh, and he felt his hips twisting into it involuntarily, the pleasure spilling through him like a slow burn. “Are you…” he sounded like he’d gone a week in the desert without water. “Are you using magic?” he tried, words muffled in the curve of his own arm.

Delighted, Dorian laughed, licking into him languidly for another long, long moment before withdrawing. Cullen shivered and shuddered under the assault. Words from his youth in the barracks popped into his mind - _fucking me with his tongue_ \- only now they seemed a less appalling and more alluring form of filth. Something hot and tight in his gut cramped with a surge of urgency, and then fluttered; his mouth fell open to breathe moist air on his own skin. His heart was picking up speed slowly, throbbing in his ears and his chest, in his joints and digits, and where Dorian’s long fingers brushed down his length to make him jerk.

“None whatsoever,” he promised. “Only the second-most talented part of my body,” he added, sounding downright arrogant, though Cullen could only chuckle weakly at it right now, and bite his lip. Fingertips slipped all the way down from his entrance to the tip of his cock, swiping a thick bead of wetness from the tip and then rubbing it in against his rim so that he could lap it away boldly. The thought made him groan again.

Enjoying him until the Commander was grinding upward in the air toward him, gasping faintly, Dorian scraped his teeth lightly across very sensitive skin, making him flinch a little as he sat up. He withdrew with a regretful exhale, reaching for the cloth to wash his face and mouth on a clean corner as thoroughly as he could. Blinking, loose-limbed and wrecked, Cullen rose up and looked over his shoulder unsteadily at him as he finished his ablution. “You’re still dressed!” he accused, feeling his blush renew.

“Very astute,” he remarked. “One does not have to be naked to enjoy a banquet.” Fully smirking at the look of borderline outrage the Fereldan man summoned for him, he pulled off his shirt to bare his chest, mollifying him slightly, and stepped out of his pants. Similarly attired at last, he reached out and placed one bare hand on the ex-Templar’s flank. “Back down,” he ordered, the inflexible quality in his voice again. When he hesitated, Dorian raised one brow and stared him down implacably. “Down,” he repeated. There was no room for disagreement there - comply or do not; orders with no middle ground.

Sucking in a nervous breath, Cullen obeyed, shifting his knees slightly as he _decided_ to let go. Whether pity or reward, Dorian had him rise up while he stuffed a folded shirt beneath them for extra padding. Then he was there behind, his fingertips slick and fragrant with oil, long digits pressing into the softened flesh. Despite the difference in length from his tongue, Cullen’s body took him so easily he could hardly credit it; just a gentle murmur of praise and a pressure against him, and then fingers were inside him, curling tenderly in his body.

There was some discomfort, but it was more due to the increasing stretch than anything. He had anticipated pain - had heard so many stories in the Templar barracks, from men and women alike, that he’d assumed it was expected. Two fingers already inside him, the mage said his name raptly and fingered him open further with attentive patience. He murmured back that he was alright, eyes closed and thinking of the times he’d done this to the mage and how _possessive_ he’d felt when he did, wondering if he felt that way now in turn. When the third finger came into play, and the discomfort increased into a dull throb, like an over-extended muscle, his fingers curled just so, and brushed a spot inside that made him buck wildly.

Eyes flying open before his cry had finished echoing back from the stone floor, he let the hand on his lower back soothe him, feeling those fingers push into him again with a warm flush of magic over his skin, dragging against something that gave him another jolt of adrenaline and pleasure again. His brain connected this with the things he had been doing with the former _altus_ for the past two weeks, and he exhaled in a shudder, forcing his hips up and his shoulders down, opening up for him as far as he could go. Rewarded with another deliberate stroke to that organ inside, he felt a low moan come from his lips, his face and ears burning.

“ _Kaffas,_ Cullen,” he swore softly, fingers moving inside him until the Fereldan man was riding them like the crest of a wave, panting. “I want you so much,” he breathed quietly. “Morning, night - _fuck_.” He drew a breath, and a hot, stiff length of flesh slipped between his thighs as the man drew closer to him, just brushing against the back of his balls. “ _Volo manere tecum_ ; _sum tuus_ , oh, the things I would do for you…”

Sounds of devotion in two languages, fingers making him sway and rock like a ship in a storm, wanting to be touched harder, faster - yes; he’d never understood it before, but this feeling, _this madness_ , as Dorian had put it - the cure was unmistakable. He reeled under the touch, wanting a sensation he couldn’t even put a proper name to.

“Fuck me,” he whispered, face hot, and his partner stilled for just a moment, until Cullen pressed back into his fingers. “Dorian,” he urged louder, but he didn’t have to ask again. Hands leaving him empty and wanting, the sound of the cap of the oil, and a slick weight pressed at his entrance - he drew a breath and let his body go limp, feeling as though all the air were being pressed out of him as he was filled, a small exclamation at the end; stretched open, muscles fluttering around the thickness of him. More substantial than even his fingers scissoring wide inside had been; he felt himself clench at the intrusion until he could force his body to relax again, to open himself over and over for each inch of him to push inside, submitting again and again in increments.

Moaning from deep in his belly, Dorian pressed the open joints of his thighs against the curved flesh of the Commander’s backside, core heat against flesh, and leaned over to press a kiss onto his spine gently. “Shall I tell you how wonderful you feel?” he inquired, voice broken like old stonework, with a dry sort of humor beneath it as though he knew how self-conscious every word would make him.

“No,” he rasped. “Just…” he didn’t even know how to finish, but Dorian didn’t need him to, didn’t seem to mind at all. He drew out and then pushed into him, slow but firm. When he did it a third time, his palms on Cullen’s hips guided him up onto his hands, changing the angle of their joining. This time, when he pulled back and thrust forward again, he hit that spot that had pushed pleasure from his fingertips through every joint of his body, and Cullen tossed his head back, snapping back into him to seat himself harder, a groan bitten off between his teeth.

Swearing in Tevene, the mage curled his fingers around his hips with a hiss of breath and leaned backward, rocking his hips forward and rolling immediately back without pausing now. His body jolted, stirring him to chase the pleasure from each thrust. It dissolved from something new into something primal, taking them both over. Cullen felt his back arching with his solid thrusts against that particular place inside, and he just wanted to fight back, like he did with a sword in his hand - to strike in turn and make it more, fuller. He picked up the rhythm and found himself rolling his own hips in response, keeping the movement between them going, each shift in direction giving him a hazy burst of friction right where he needed it. Moans and praises urged him to continue, and he found that the more forceful thrusts pushed tiny little cries from his own lips.

Just when he was starting to feel breathless and dizzy with it, Dorian’s pace slackened. Long, slow strokes inside him, angled away from the best spot, and they both caught their breath. “On your back. Knees up again,” the mage asked him, pulling out slowly. Oil dripped down his thigh as he eased himself back onto his heels, stretching out his body with a wince. Following orders was easy, and a change in position was probably well-timed. Dorian’s hands smoothed over his shoulders with an affectionate squeeze, lips brushing his skin with a tickle of moustache, and he let himself be guided down once more.

Throwing the Commander's legs confidently over his shoulders, Dorian gave them a little more oil before leaning over him, cock sliding into him again in one bold push. Just the realization that he was this loose, this wet inside that he could be taken so easily made him flush, but the pulse of pleasure it gave him strangled his reflexive shyness into a surprisingly deep-voiced moan. Silver eyes lidded at the sound, tracked the blush on his skin, and fought a smile, but shortly he was licking his lips again and filling him eagerly, lips parting for air as his brows drew downward in concentration. Dorian filled him up in a way he didn’t think he would easily forget now. 

This was good - this was _better_ , actually, and he felt his body respond to the new position in a host of little ways. He was throbbing eagerly, dripping onto himself again now. Rocking up into the man over him with the leverage from his shoulders, he let his head roll back onto the desk, feeling his spine wanting to arch, his thighs falling open, and his chin falling back when Dorian touched his neck with one hand. Breathing heavily, the Fereldan man parted his lips, pushing against the desk with one hand even as he hooded his eyes with the other.

“Cullen,” that refined voice stirred him from the dark inner shoals of pleasure, and he brought his hand down. “Talk to me.” It sounded a ridiculous request when he could barely string together thoughts for long minutes at a time, but he realized that Dorian probably wanted to know he was well. He swallowed around a groan as his partner slowed, but didn’t stop.

“Keep going,” was the only thing he could say at first, and that coming in a raspy whisper. “ _Maker_ , Dorian, please,” he drew in an unsteady breath, feeling the man’s hips shift their angle just slightly. His next thrust was so well-aimed Cullen couldn’t even speak for a moment; inside, he glowed like a falling star. A hand circled his wrist, pushed it up against the desk, spreading his body wide open in every respect. “Please let me come like this,” he whispered, the words slipping from his lips like a canticle.

“ _Yes_ ,” he hissed. “Anything you want. Just like this.” He drank in the words, the tone, and just realized that his eyes had slipped shut, savoring the steady build of pleasure. Dorian squeezed his wrist and ground into him, _hard_ , and Cullen moaned again, eyes opening to take in his face. He was shining with perspiration, biting his lower lip, and staring down at the Commander with need in his features. Forcing his eyes to stay open, he looked back up at him steadily. He whispered something in Tevene, but the blood was rushing in his ears and he couldn’t hear it well.

Dorian’s other hand had been helping to hold himself up, but he shifted his stance just a little and dragged his palm over the Commander’s chest, sliding it down until his talented fingers could curl around his cock. He almost sobbed when it happened; the flesh was almost painfully hard, the pressure a relief on his swollen flesh, and the movements of their coupling pistoned the Fereldan man up into his palm. He spoke the mage’s name several times, more than he could count, half begging and half something else.

Bent forward enough to share breath, the former _altus_ whispered, "If I could have you like this... every day for the rest of my life... it wouldn't be enough." Pushing Cullen's knee higher as he did, he pounded hard against the core of him, twice, _thrice,_ his cock hammering in with the same force as the words, sinking into his skin and making his chest flutter and tighten, his stomach following suit, his hips arching and _oh_ …

Dorian drew in a ragged breath, his voice dropping low in his chest. “ _Te amo_ … _Cullen,_ ” he mouthed around a half-moan, a beautiful, broken noise. His lover’s palm twisting around the head of his cock wildly - Maker, that was the end for him - serenaded by that raggedly desperate upheaval resounding from his throat. Cullen felt his whole body snap taut, the end rushing up onto him, rippling through his veins like hot lyrium and sending him from leaking to spurting over the other man's fingers. The sharp cry in his throat cut off in silence part way through as he shuddered hard, mouthing the other man’s name.

Still moving within him, Dorian wrenched another helpless noise from him, but it only pushed the peak he was on even higher. He couldn't stop his body from clamping down on his lover's cock, and the rolling sounds coaxed from Dorian's lips were _everything_ ; he was going to hear it in his dreams. Soft-eyed and frantic, his lover raised his hand and licked beads of come from his skin, then sucked deeply on his fingertips, lids falling shut as he fucked them both through the climax, heat spilling into his body. The sensation gave him a final uncomfortable twitch of fading arousal, and his lover sank onto his palms over him while they gasped for air.

"Maker's breath," he mumbled helplessly, head thudding back down onto the desk.

Dorian's snort spoke of how quaint he found the mild epithet. "You should know, you have such a serious face when you're under someone," he laughed, still sounding breathless, his words shaken and slow; _helplessly fond_. "I promise, you won't be asked to fill out one of your bloody reports about it afterward.” He drew a deep, ragged breath. “Remember to smile, will you, for the next -"

He reached up with both hands, clapping them against his cheeks to silence him. It was quiet while they looked at each other, still haloed in the last light. Dorian's expression crumpled in dístress, but he clamped it down before any tears could do more than bead in his eyes.

"Stop," the Commander begged, voice rumbling brokenly.

" _You_ stop," he protested mutinously, voice thick. "I can't take any more… kindness from you." He dropped his head down, and Cullen laid back, staring at the worn ceiling. Presently, the mage pulled out of him, drawing an involuntary gasp. He felt himself spill onto the desk, and flushed, teeth clenching.

Rolling away, his lover searched out the cloth, folded it to a clean side and wiped his skin clean for him. Gray eyes avoided his, but a thumb smoothed the lines on his forehead. "Go get some water in you before you get a headache."

“Come upstairs with me,” he mumbled, catching at the flushed dark skin of one elbow. He reeled the limb in gently, fingers inching up his bicep until the mage was standing with his hip leaning into the desktop. Cullen rolled onto his side, half of a mind to rise, but instead nuzzled into the scars on his hip, feeling lazy and sated. Kissing at the marks in the mage’s duskier skin, he closed his eyes, sighed against him. “Thank the Maker you lived through that,” he planted a hard kiss there against the sharp bone, arms winding around his waist.

Dorian pulled away from him, body rigid as he broke away. Back turned to him, he gathered his clothing and wiped the back of one hand across his mouth uneasily, sweat making his skin shimmer in the dimness. With a flickering swing of one finger, he beckoned life into the candles, and Cullen felt an unease in the abruptness of the gesture this time. Swinging his legs over the edge of the desk, he moved to sit up, and hissed in sore discomfort, aching and inadvertently spoiling the surface of the desk further. Rather than sit, he slid shakily to his feet, his knees loose like the early days of lyrium withdrawal.

“Talk to me,” he urged in the quiet room, eyes stroking down the former _altus’_ bare neck and spine from afar. Having given up control during their interlude, he swallowed and firmed his voice, standing tall to work on taking a measure of it back. “Is it your scars?”

In profile, his expression looked like storm clouds. Dorian paused before answering, his head turning. “No,” he admitted, though there was an uneasiness that suggested that they didn’t help matters.

“Then something I did,” he hazarded, but the unyielding expression told him that this too was a miss. “Come, up the ladder,” he urged, coming to turn him.

“You won’t get me up there,” he admitted, though his tone was viciously sharp. “Not right now, after being on my knees.” He didn’t have time for another word of protest when Cullen took the matter into his own hands. He scooped Dorian up onto his shoulder with arms locking around his thighs. Thrown forward by the abrupt shift, he draped over the Fereldan man’s shoulder in the least dignified fashion possible.

“ _Cullen,_ ” he snapped. “Put me down!” Struggling slightly, he only stilled when the Commander raised one hand to pat at the generous curves of his arse. “You think I don’t know how your back twinges, or how soldiering has affected your knees and feet? Put me down!”

“You seem to know everything about me,” he said, and while cinching him in place with one arm, he climbed the ladder by virtue of feet and one hand. Dorian went motionless once they’d left the floor, and something about the way he went perfectly limp told him that it wasn’t his first time being carried up this ladder, by far. “But I still know so little about you.”

“What will it matter, soon?” he whispered, his hands rising, elbow bumping the back of his neck while the mage scrubbed at his face. “I will be gone, and you will once again be the Inquisition’s most eligible bachelor,” he pointed out, the joke emerging with more acid than he likely intended. At the top of the stairs, he hauled them both off the ladder and to the bed before he laid the Tevinter man down.

Suspecting Dorian would bolt at the first opportunity, he threw himself down between the mage and freedom, arms sliding around him and pulling him in. He resisted, but passively, and Cullen had the distinct pleasure of dragging his stubbled cheek up the other man’s chest and making him shudder; he came to rest with his nose in the hollow of his throat. “It matters,” he whispered, a very long time after they settled together. “And you’re here now. That’s enough.” He squeezed harder. “You’re enough.”

Dorian’s hand found his cheek, with a tenderness that contrasted his current temperament. The eyes staring down into his were focused intently, marked by lines between and at the corners. “What, then?” he asked at last, trying to settle back into being agreeable and gracious, as he had been making the effort to be all this time.

“You had so many pet names,” he mused, “though half of them I cannot understand. Surely you picked up a few of your own?” he brushed his thumbs over a spot that made him squirm, earning a reluctant smile.

“Tell me, does expressing affection come easy to you?” he asked lightly, and at the Commander’s hesitant shake of the head, he nodded. “You must expect as much from any anecdotes of him, as well. Likely the case in _any_ world, if I know the two of you,” he remarked with a sigh. He rolled onto his back, almost taking the larger man with him, but Cullen let him go, sensing the space was needed. “He showed his love in other ways. I adjusted my expectations accordingly.” He must have appeared concerned, because a self-deprecating snort emerged. “Oh, don’t take it badly; it wasn’t a fairy tale, but we somehow muddled through.” Warmth warred with discontent in his face. “And it’s far more than I ever dreamed I could have, for myself,” he admitted.

“Was…” he found his fingers drifting up toward his mouth, as though part of him were trying to unconsciously stifle himself. “Was he good to you?”

“Better than I deserved, at times,” he soothed. “And at others, as good as he was capable of providing. He never…” the pause was noticeable, but he continued as though it had not been. “Never gave less than his best.” Something of that brooding look came back to his far-off gaze, as though he counted motes of dust in the air. “He put me before himself, and I … loved him for it,” he said slowly. “But there were… moments when I resented him for it as well.”

“I’ve never -” but of course he knew as much. “I don’t understand.”

Brows drawing together, Dorian chewed on his thoughts. He waited, unable to resist the urge to reach over to him, to touch his skin in the fading light. His body was breathtaking, and he found his hand skimming over his arm, timidly, his fingers looking stiff and ungainly against such beautiful lines and angles. “What is marriage, Cullen?”

Taken aback, his hand stilled, eyes flickering up toward his tense jaw. “I… well,” he paused and licked his lips, trying to answer well, and thoughtfully, though he knew he’d never match the Tevinter man’s sharp wit. “It’s a joining of two people in the sight of the Maker.”

Turning his head, his eyes bored into the Commander’s in challenge. “And, without all the charming religious context?”

Words and definitions filtered through his head, but he didn’t know the truest answer. Pausing with a frown of his own, he raised his eyes back to Dorian’s, seeing the slight mollification in the fact that he was actually taking the time to think about it. 

“It’s a commitment, wouldn’t you say?” Cullen didn’t know where he was being led, and he simply nodded his head, but kept his gaze fastened on that dark gray one to show his willingness to understand. “To _be together_. As _partners_ ,” he clarified. “Well, where the hell is he now?” he demanded, his voice low in the dim light.

Licking his lips carefully, he withdrew completely, leaving a space between them on the bed. “He died,” he answered slowly. “...Didn’t he?”

“Yes,” the dark-haired head bent forward into the space between them. “He did. So much for that _partnership_ ,” he hissed. “He was so… _fixated_ on protecting me that he left me behind,” he explained, with exaggerated care, rolling up onto his elbow. “I _should have_ been there with him! I am - I _was_ \- an _altus_ , dammit. I’m not bloody useless - I could have protected _him!_ ” he insisted hotly. “ _And you_ …”

His mouth worked for a moment, caught between anger and logic. Cullen took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “I would never have done that to you,” he swore.

“That is _bullshit._ ” Dorian shoved at his chest, but it was only a hard pressure, with no real pain. “You’re every bit as bad as he was!” the mage accused, sitting up and rolling to the end of the bed, sitting at the foot and glaring at him, both hands covering his injured knee. Cullen sat up slowly, weight balanced on one hip and his elbow. “Don’t try to tell me you would never do such a thing, because you _did_ ; don’t try to tell me you wouldn’t, because you’re exactly the same in that respect!” Dorian’s voice rose as his hands turned into fists, but his shout was strained. “You think the _same way_ about protecting others - protecting _me_. At the _expense_ of yourself, and it’s not fair, because _I fucking needed you!_ ”

Hands curling in the air, Dorian’s head turned restlessly like he had so much more to say, his chest heaving. Even as he searched for words his expression crumpled, his hands came up to shield his face, his lips pulling back from his teeth in a grimace. Small sounds emerged from his chest on the end of every breath, little almost-sobs. “And you…” his voice was raw and gritty in the small space between them. “You told me he should have protected me _more_ \- you said you were glad I lived, like I even have anything to live _for!_ ”

Cullen sucked in a sharp breath, a pain in his chest coming in under his ribcage, drawing his empty palm to press flat against his own skin as though to hold closed a wound. Dorian held one hand clenched over his breast, the other palm open covering his eyes loosely. The Commander drew in a cold breath and crawled down to the foot of the bed, slowly. Pulling his knees under him and ignoring the stiff ache in his rear parts, he balanced and reached for the mage’s wrists, fingers wrapping around them firmly and pulling.

Flailing, Dorian shoved at him again, but he had him now, and the struggle only brought the former _altus_ into his arms. “Do you think me so callous that seeing you would leave me unmoved?” he demanded once he had Dorian pressed to him, chest to chest, ear to the scar on his lips. Arm around his waist, he cinched the other man to him, ignoring the push of his elbows and his knees, the dampness of his cheek against his own stubble. “I could never see you like this and not _feel_ anything,” he swore.

“It… changes nothing,” Dorian managed to mouth against his skin, his voice faint, though he still pushed weakly at his chest. “Not for me. But _you_ …” a long, wet sniff, his voice thick around the lump he swallowed in his throat. “Don’t ever put anyone else through what I went through,” he demanded. Stubborn. _Dignified_.

The question he’d asked himself two weeks ago - _what would it be like to be your husband?_ \- he knew the answer. Turning, he pressed Dorian down into the bedsheets again, covering him with his own bare body. His mouth sought the Tevinter man’s lips, and the sound he pulled from the man’s throat was swallowed into his mouth. _I would have been so proud_.

“Never,” he promised, pulling back just enough to say that, and to catch a small nod because he wanted to believe Cullen would learn from this; his fingers wove into the mage’s grip, pressing them over his head and leaning down to take his mouth again. Dorian’s response was eager; acceptance as strong as his struggle a moment before, when he would have paced, or raged, if he could. Cullen knew it wasn’t what he really wanted. They searched each other, skin on skin and voice against voice, and it was something more than he’d ever envisioned.

But he worried, and he wasn’t sure he knew what he was doing, so he tried everything - kisses, hands in his hair, on his skin, breath on his neck, and even his words. “Never hurt you like that again,” he murmured. “I’m sorry. So, _so_ sorry.”

It wasn’t real. Nothing changed the fact that tomorrow could be the last day. But he needed to hear it; he wanted to heal, and Cullen knew it was a small price to pay, to carry that debt for just a short while. He could give him this voice and these hands, be the lover and the husband; play both roles for a moment and hope that it took some of the darkness out of him. Hope that it let him release the last of the bitterness he would never get to say to the man who should have heard it most. Lips tight and twisting against his grief, Dorian just nodded, eyes closing.

Kissing him until he felt his lips go slack, the tension leaving his body, he dedicated himself to the task. Tongue in his mouth - the taste of him, the fervent push back against him, the smoothness of his lips - he kept one hand interlaced with the mage’s overhead, the other stroking his skin wherever he could reach. Dorian’s hand dropped down and traced a path up his spine, holding him now instead of pushing him away.

When they broke for air, he let his tongue trace the mage’s lips lightly, breathing him in. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he swore, and he meant it, because he knew it was the truth, even if for him it was just stolen time. Dorian’s mouth fell open when Cullen bit tenderly into his lip. “Thank the Maker for you.”

“Don’t leave me again, Cullen,” he whispered, one warm thigh curling around his hip. Ah, he felt so good, lying beneath him like this. He knew he was in trouble, because he would never forget this. Dorian had so many of his _firsts_ now - he couldn’t speak the words, but he knew this was something that changed everything for him.

“I’m yours.” He admitted, the words pressed into the mage’s collarbone. Dorian stilled beneath him, hands going slack. “Wherever you go, you’ll make me proud. You’re going to keep making me proud, I know it.”

Free hand rising, Dorian covered his face again with his palm and his long, lovely fingers. He didn’t want to cry, but the tears slid free anyway. This time, they were strangely silent. So he stopped hiding and pulled Cullen down to hold onto.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remedial Latin translations:
> 
>  _Leo formosus_ \- Handsome lion
> 
>  _Volo tu, Amatus_ \- I want you, beloved (But lbr y'all didn't join a 6-year-old fandom and not know what _Amatus_ is.
> 
>  _Volo futuam tu_ \- I want to fuck you (Note: general term for sexual intercourse, particularly heterosexual, but also probably the most respectful, because it is the most masculine sex act for those of you who are HC'ing Roman-Tevinter culture. Because Cullen deserves to be treated like a fucking lady, gdi)
> 
>  _Tam dulcis_ \- So sweet
> 
>  _Volo manere tecum (tecum = cum + tu)_ \- I want to stay with you
> 
>  _Sum tuus_ \- I am yours ( _Sum_ is irregular and I freely admit I have no idea what I'm doing.)
> 
>  _Te amo_ \- I love you
> 
> Please drop me a comment if I missed any.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable, because you didn’t want the attention; but now I think I let you believe I was_ ashamed _of you,” Bull explained bluntly. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter starts 8 Guardian 9:44
> 
> I love all of you guys for continuing to read and give me your feedback. It all means the world to me! 🌸 I'm not a fantastic artist but this chapter I included a thing I made for you to look at. 🌸
> 
> Please accept it as a gesture of goodwill and don't hurt me! >.<; Don't place your bets, because I promise, the story is not over yet! ;)

Cullen’s boys and girls defeated three waves of demons in the night, though most of each wave was prevented by virtue of sleepy mages, dozing on a stool next to the wall, being woken up to cast _Dispel_ in intervals. Bull went to the bath the next morning, and when he got out to the upper courtyard, Dorian was already parked at Dagna’s side.

“There hasn’t been any sign of a new attempt to engage the rift yet,” Dagna cautioned the Tevinter man as Bull turned his attention back toward them. “If I’m reading this right, we’ll have a new wave of demons in about forty-five minutes. I’ll send a runner to the mages and get a fresh rotation out here. Maybe we can’t have a dispel region, but we can still try to prevent more mayhem.” Dorian was nodding wearily, looking somewhat sober, considering.

Bull found himself almost hoping some demons got through - just so that he would have something to smash. Dorian waited through the rest of the afternoon. Presently, Cullen came by, after the War Room meeting adjourned. His face was pale and drawn with barely-concealed anxiety, but catching sight of Dorian, his expression eased, a faint bit of color returning to him at last as he paused at the top of the landing. He didn’t let himself smile, but he did manage to look at least three years younger within the space of moments, if not more.

“ _Tam pulcher aspectu_ ,” Dorian murmured. Then his smile grew positively wicked when Cullen’s slightly hitched stride down the stairs became apparent. After a sinful little chuckle, however, his eyes softened over his smirk, thumb hooking in his belt beneath his drawn-back coat. With the long sigh that billowed from him, Bull couldn’t help but think he expressed four or five different emotions at once.

Apparently that was a _Dorian thing_ ; his _Kadan_ was capable of the psychological flexibility that required. As for himself, Bull liked things straightforward, and he knew this much about himself. Dorian, however, experienced emotions like a starving man at a banquet; or perhaps feeling only one thing at a time was simply too pedestrian for him. It had taken many weeks to prioritize the often conflicting signals he sent in order to get an accurate read on him. This, however, was a more finished version of the former _altus_ , in some ways - closer to the person who might be left of him once he grew too old to give a damn about maintaining his many facades.

Nudging the mage, he muttered, “ _Tu canis_.”

“Who, me?” he laughed. Then Cullen arrived, and nodded first at Bull, reserving the majority of his attention for the dusky-skinned mage. Dorian held up one hand, palm splayed, and threaded his fingers through the Commander’s proprietarily when their palms met, unabashedly. 

At last the sun dropped below the battlements. “I doubt they will be working in the dark,” the Commander pointed out helpfully at last. Dorian looked exhausted from his day spent sitting on the low stool in the cold and from pacing, even though they’d been sure to feed him and give him breaks. They were all almost reluctant to give up, but Cullen put his foot down, carefully implacable.

Dorian held up both hands in surrender, and leaned forward to roll up to his feet. “Alright, love. Have someone get us some dinner, will you? I’m actually decently hungry, and _terribly_ bored,” he admitted. “I’ll catch up.”

Others dispersed as the former Qunari stared down at the mage. _Love_ , he’d said. He didn’t seem to realize he’d said the word - or it came too naturally to him to be remarkable. Arms behind his back, fists clenched, Bull waited until they were alone.

“Are you ready to go back to your life?” he asked, quietly.

“I don’t really care about that,” he refuted distantly. “So long as your Dorian comes back; he, at least, still has a chance to…” a short breath took over his words. “You said Cole seemed to think that your, um… _tooth_ would help determine that, at any rate.” He flickered one set of fingers toward Dagna’s table, where the protective tarps now covered the necklace and equipment. “It’s less important what happens to me.” He paused, looking stricken. “Unless it’s a world where Corypheus won. That would be… _terribly_ ironic.”

“No shit,” he drawled back. “What if you didn’t have to go back?” he asked.

Dorian looked up somberly at him as he tried to read through the question. He stood straight despite his injury, and his eyes glittered darkly in the sunset. “There’s no use to dwell on such a thing. Staying isn’t an option,” he replied firmly. “The only purpose in wondering would be to hurt me. Unless that’s what you’re after, I shall try to focus on what needs doing.”

“Sorry, Dorian. I just…” he couldn’t help the tiny bit of a laugh that wanted to come out. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember that we were friends before anything else. You...” he rubbed the back of his neck like a certain Commander liked to do. “You know how I am when I can’t figure someone out.”

Gaze heavy and speculative, he blinked. “Bull,” he began, hesitantly. “I know I’ve no right to, but… may I ask you a favor?”

Intrigued, he tilted his head permissively. “I wrote some letters,” he explained, almost sheepishly. “I, um. I wondered if you could see that they reach their recipients once I leave Skyhold?” Brow rising, Bull nodded slowly. Dorian reached into a different inner pocket, and extracted a pack of letters. “I suppose I should have had them ready yesterday, but…” he paused. “It didn’t feel real, I guess. None of this has felt real, to be honest. I half expect this to be a dream still,” he reached up both hands and tapped his temples, drawing his fingers out to the sides to snap his fingers twice in sync, and then out of sync, right beside his ears. _Fade Tell_.

“I’ve got it, _Ka_ \- Dorian,” he rumbled. “Go get some rest.”

The next day, the Commander and the mage met again, face to face. There was a quiet moment where the two gazed at each other.

Nothing more was said. Another quiet goodbye kiss, two smiles full of half-hidden pain and regretful affection. Hands letting one another go with great reluctance; Dorian turning away because he had to, Cullen standing fast because he had no choice. The only whisper he heard was Dorian’s: _Thank you for letting me take care of you._ Bull could admit to himself that part of him hated to see their pain, even if he couldn’t help but be selfish this time.

Neither one of them wanted to miss his departure, and they settled into an uneasy silence. Someone stole a bench for the two warriors from the smithy, and they watched Dagna and the Tranquil work quietly at their experimental contraption. Alexius was brought down to join them eventually, and the two mages spoke softly and rapidly in elegantly-accented Tevene. His _Kadan_ had been right; it sounded completely different from Krem’s speech. Dorian alternated between helping them in notating with pen and ink in their loose notebook, or simply staring down the rift with a moody expression on his face. Once or twice, he aided the mage recruits in Dispelling the zone when demons attempted to manifest.

“Should we…” Dorian sauntered over to Dagna after the third time they’d had to Dispel. “Should we perhaps try to initiate a transfer from here?” He was pulling his amulet out of his pocket, clutching it tightly in his fingers as he frowned thoughtfully. “If _your_ Dorian - in my world - is to be drawn back here,” he nodded toward the necklace on the table, “...then only our intended recipient should be able to connect - is that not so?”

Alexius frowned at the Dwarven woman and then back at his former pupil. “There is some truth to what you say, Dorian,” he began. “However, despite the fact that you are from that world, is there anything in your possession that fulfills the same role as the dragon tooth?” The darker-skinned mage looked uncertain, thumb and forefinger smoothing along the thin line of his goatee contemplatively. “Anything that is part to a whole, with the other half back in your world?”

Looking himself and his belongings over carefully, Dorian frowned. “It’s true that what is on my person came from there, but I think all of my clothing and belongings are considered separate elements - cloth fibers are nearly impossible to trace, after all.” He peeked into his belt pouch and shook his head with a frown.

“If that’s the case,” the older man replied slowly, crossing his arms, “...then it is better not to push. After all, if _you_ do not end up in the correct world, we can hardly retrieve our own version of Dorian.”

“I shall miss you, you old bastard,” he murmured with a wry sort of respect - another thing it pained him to leave behind. If it hadn't been for Bull's own _Kadan_ … "You're too right, of course. I can withstand a little impatience and uncertainty if it means setting right my own misdeeds."

So the waiting continued. At long last, in the afternoon, Dagna sat up and hurriedly informed them that it seemed to be happening finally. Dorian wasted no time hauling to his feet, held back only momentarily by his infirmity. His eyes lingered on the two warriors who stood anxiously along with him, but his hands never stopped moving. The former _altus_ wrapped his fingers around the scarred pendant and clutched his staff in both hands, dark brows knitting together in his serious face.

Bursting out of the tavern, Adaar answered the scout’s summons, coming out to survey the scene in concern. Clever blue eyes scanned over the mage’s countenance, and settled on Dagna’s scowling face. “What’s going on, Dagna?”

“It’s…” she shook her head in frustration. “It seems to be what we think is the right frequency - the right person trying to access - but it’s so weak, I don’t know if it’ll be enough.” She turned and called over her shoulder, “Can you feel anything, Dorian?”

“Yes,” he answered back, loudly but slowly, as though he were concentrating so hard that the words must be dragged from his belly. “It’s faint, like at the end of a tunnel, but I feel…” he took in a shuddering breath, droplets of sweat starting to form on his forehead. “Well, I feel _myself_ ,” he answered, with a voice that hinted at how wondrous it was to see and feel oneself as something more than a simple echo or reflection. “It’s my magic,” he breathed more quietly, gazing up into the hazy gold rift.

“Well, tell ‘im to speak up a bit!” The Dwarven woman barked back at him.

“Would it help if we could support the connection somehow from here?” Adaar demanded, and Dagna caught her breath, adjusting dials and flipping through the chart next to her while biting her lip. At last, she half-shrugged like she couldn’t be sure. “Can’t hurt, then?” At the redhead’s vigorous nod, the Inquisitor rounded on the patrol stationed in the vicinity. “Get me four staves; call Vivienne and Fiona to get down here immediately! And, eh…”

Dorian had been the fourth mage last time, but this time, he would need to concentrate. Bull looked around thoughtfully, he and Cullen exchanging a worried look. His gaze alighted on the disgraced magister, just as the man stepped forward and opened his mouth. “ _Alexius_ ,” Bull blurted out - better to make it the idea of a trusted companion, after all. The older man’s gaze flickered to him in surprise, and he nodded in gratitude.

“Fine,” Adaar replied, with utmost civility. With great humility, the former noble bowed to the most powerful _Vashoth_ in Thedas, and positioned himself at her side. “You have helped with this entire endeavor,” she acknowledged openly. “I like to think people can choose to change.”

When the two women joined them, hurrying down from the Great Hall, the staves had already arrived from the armory. Respectfully, Alexius dipped his head to Fiona and handed her a weapon. Warily, she accepted it, and the two moved toward the rift. Junou circled around to the rear as Vivienne took up the far position, the four of them moving together into the appropriate circle for area-of-effect casting. Dorian had settled into what almost appeared to be a meditative state in the circle; eyes closed, his lips pursed and just barely moving, the birthright pendant taking up an ethereal glow in his right hand, fingers open wide. As they watched, the pendant floated gently just a few scant centimeters above his palm.

Bull didn’t hear the mages’ discussion of what thaumaturgical tactics they would utilize. Their voices could hardly be heard under Dagna’s sudden, sharp shout. “ _We have a problem!_ ” she cried. The mages were too distracted, but the warriors’ heads whipped toward her. The Tranquil was shoving an open notebook in her direction, pointing toward the hand-scribed notations. “We have another spawn cycle coming up!” the woman explained, craning her head back over her shoulder.

Cullen was at his side as the mercenary hurried double-time over to the small, open-sided tent that housed Dagna’s gear. “How many? How long?” the Fereldan man was asking in a voice crisp as a diamond drill.

“I don’t know,” she was saying. “I was keeping an eye on the rift connection - I don’t know how many, but you _can’t_ let the mages Dispel or it’ll break Dorian’s connection and shut the window.” Her eyes rose to meet the Commander’s, flickering up toward Bull. “It’s weak, yes; the problem is, the rift has been getting stronger all this time - exponentially so in the last day alone,” she explained. “Dorian’s been trying to keep it under control by breaking the matrix, but it takes a lot of finesse to do that and keep it still functional. If we damage it too much, it won’t work for a transfer - it’ll just be an unstable disruption in the Veil, with unpredictable effects. It’d have to be shut down from this side before it’s too late, no matter _who_ is _where_.”

“You mean, this is the best shot we’re gonna get,” the _Tal-Vashoth_ grunted, interpreting her words. “And it’s already almost too hard for our mages.”

“Dispel is out, then,” Cullen grunted, turning around and uttering a sharp whistle to get a recruit to join them. “It’s just demons, though,” he added. “Awful, but we can handle it.” The recruit slipped under the tent. “Get Bull’s weapon, and my shield,” he ordered, “...and I need a full support team armed in…” he glanced at the Dwarven woman, who held up a flip-flopping hand, then four digits. “Three minutes! _Move!_ ”

“About that,” Dagna cleared her throat above the sound of shouting and running feet heading toward the armory. The team already on patrol stepped up to cordon in the mages, weapons at the ready.

“Let me guess,” Bull rolled his eye, gazing down first at the human man, and then at her. “Our mages look like defenseless, delicious morsels to the demons?”

“Better than that bacon you stole off my plate,” She agreed, then adjusted a dial and whispered vehemently low from her gut, “... _Dwarves hold long grudges_.”

“... _Balls_ ,” he swore. But then his familiar weapon hilt was shoved into his hand, and he hefted it, moving toward the mages to help reinforce the lines. “ _Sera!_ ” he bellowed, right under her window at the top of his lungs. As they moved into position, a faint silver-blue glow grew into existence, connecting the mages to one another and washing the area in a cooler light, in opposition to the warm glow of the rift. The very space seemed to hum around them.

After a moment, the casing of the window slid open, and the blonde-haired woman poked her shaggy head out, taking in the activity below. Her jaw dropped. “Oh, _piss!_ ” She ducked back inside in a flurry, and he heard her shout for Krem and Cole, returning to the window and sliding out feet-first. Outside, balancing on the slanted roof, she thumped her quiver down against her ankle and swiped out three arrows.

“Shit, I love that girl,” Bull rumbled, and Cullen managed a strangled chuckle as he settled his shield and joined in. At the far side, between Vivienne and Alexius, Cole drew two shiny daggers from his belt and faced the rift. More recruits joined, and a scant handful of archers on patrol lined the battlement wall.

“ _Get ready!_ ” Cullen bellowed in parade call as the Arcanist met his eye and nodded. “Protect the mages! Don’t let a demon lay a finger on them! Nils, Kerry, Farrier - watch the mages’ feet for terror demons!” Several barks of acknowledgement answered back.

Jagged tendrils of Fade energy spit out from the green-gold rift, unravelling toward the ground in all directions. It looked wilder, fiercer than the self-same rift’s summonings had appeared just three weeks ago, and unless he was going blind, it was greener than it had been - more like the Breach; like the smaller, untamed monstrosities that had tried to devour the entire south in bite-sized gulps. He bit off a few curses in Qunlat and ground his teeth as the first swarm - a mix of wraiths and terror demons, and a single enterprising despair demon - materialized.

The entire group leapt into action, with Cole launching himself head first at a terror demon. Arrows from Sera and the scouts on the wall traced the path of the retreating despair demon as it swirled and danced away across the cramped corner of the battlefield - inadvertently doing them a favor by leaping out into the thick of the reporting soldiers. Bull laid eye on an unoccupied terror demon while a group of recruits ran to smash through the wispy outlines of floating wraiths, covering the mages with their bodies and shields.

Grappling the terror demon to his side, Bull yanked the grotesquely long-limbed creature away from the delicious circle of magic-users as it shrieked. While it staggered, Cullen rammed it with a shield bash, and rained down long overhand chops into its twisted limbs. A gust of frigid air from behind, accompanied by an unearthly screech, signalled a mob of Inquisition recruits hacking the despair demon into ephemeral pieces. Bull severed the head from the terror demon, and watched as motes of its dissolving form flickered up into the air.

Though a terror demon and a few wraiths still remained, Bull looked up toward the rift, becoming cognizant that the Fade tendrils had not faded as they were typically wont to do with wild rifts. Across the battlefield, his eyes found Dorian’s, who had turned to survey the mess of combat. Guilt and resolve rippled across his features as he rededicated himself to the rift overhead. He turned his face upward and raised the birthright and staff again.

A rage demon had sprouted right to his left - the heat of its molten body gave it away when it turned to strike at his blind spot. The Commander lunged across him and thrust his sword into the demon’s side, causing it to buck backward. Swinging, Bull swatted the air over the Fereldan man’s golden-haired head, driving the demon back onto the waiting swordpoint of an infantry recruit. Sera decorated the back of its head with new arrow-holes.

More combatants joined the fight as the alarm spread through Skyhold, and from time to time, Bull felt the wash of mage barrier spells and helpful Creation magics, as well as a few tightly-controlled offensive magics. Unfortunately, most of their mage allies were relegated to support to avoid hitting friendly combatants, and the archers had fewer and fewer targets that were safe to hit from above.

Unlike the rifts he was accustomed to, the spawns rippled across the field in something that seemed like a half-cycle - like someone had wedged the door to the Fade wide open, letting anything come through that wanted a piece of the action. “ _No Dispels!_ ” Cullen and his captains and lieutenants were policing the mage recruits fiercely. “Don’t disrupt the casting!”

Grappling a despair demon close, Bull grunted and found himself in a position to shove his two-hander straight through the thing’s wide, toothy maw and into the ground. It flailed through its injury as Sera, one of the few with pinpoint accuracy to the degree necessary to shoot through the melee, helped curtail its resistance permanently. As it dissolved into the ether, Bull called out a general _“Duck!_ ” and swiped his axe through several wispy wraiths.

Moaning itself up into an obnoxious whine, the rift began to charge, humming with the anxious tension of abandoned Dwarven mining elevators lifting over their weight limit. A beam of ice magic arced overhead, missing the rift but dangerously close to the mages, before being knocked off-course by a series of furious arrows harpooning into the demon that caused it.

Orange light streaked up Adaar’s horn caps as a rage demon unfurled behind her head, and Bull, already tangling with a terror demon, jerked the double-bearded axe from the sickly green creature’s claws, ramming it off-balance by virtue of whipping his head around and slamming one horn into it. Meeting the Commander’s eye, he jerked his head toward the Inquisitor’s back. “ _Cullen!_ ”

Golden-hazel eyes chasing his glance, the fur-bedecked man angled his shield and rammed the rage demon away as it heaved itself upward to slam down an attack. Momentum flung the Commander into the circle of the mages, and he whipped his sword back around, feet scuffing blades of grass free of the ground as he stood between Dorian in the center, and the rage demon. Taking a deep breath, he threw himself toward it, back out of the circle, ramming the demon out of the spellcasting zone, even as he pierced through it with his sword.

Bull severed the terror demon and turned to the rift as the whine grew louder, humming through his bones and vibrating his timpanium. The birthright pendant now stood in place of Adaar’s anchor, glowing brightly and spinning loosely in the air above Dorian’s palm.

“ _Focus, Dorian!_ ” Alexius bared his teeth as he squinted through the bright light, the flaring ring that formed around the rift as it had on that first day. “Channel the rift spell into yourself through your amulet! _Scio potes facis hunc!_ ”

Gritting pale teeth through a mask of concentration and effort, the former _altus_ didn’t reply. The demons slowly began to filter out of the battlefield, taken down by Inquisition troops, and the rift’s light concentrated back into the familiar sunshine glow Bull remembered. As it did, the wispy green tendrils of Fade energy linking the rift to the ground dissipated slowly. As he watched, the Tevinter man’s face beaded slowly in sweat, mouth falling open to gasp for air, shoulders heaving in a rolling motion.

_He’s pushing too hard_ , he thought, and Cullen echoed his thoughts with a shout. “We need lyrium over here - he’s running out of mana!” Disengaged combatants stepped out, and hands rustled through packs, and at last a glowing blue vial made the rounds up to the front of the crowd. Cullen tossed down his shield and sheathed his sword, marching into the spellcasting area and popping the cork as he went. He put the vial to Dorian’s lips, but the man could hardly spare more attention than it took to meet his eyes and sip. He looked better almost immediately after.

Backing away, Cullen moved back outside of the spell, calling for everyone to give them room. A sharp tendril of energy pierced the amulet from above, and Dorian licked the last sheen of the lyrium potion from his lips. “Move away,” he called to his fellow mages, who glanced at one another and began to disengage. “Honor and a privilege, and all that,” he added hoarsely, his eyes lifting to the rift.

The _Tal-Vashoth_ buried his weapon in the dirt and stepped forward, easing an exhausted Adaar back away from the rift with a touch to her shoulder. “Get back,” he muttered, raising his voice to be heard over the sharp wail of the rift.

“It’s gotta work this time.” She shook her head, exhausted, and he squeezed her arm.

_Please, Kadan_ , he begged, though he didn’t know if he could believe it was really a prayer, anymore. If they’d listen, however, he’d ask any deity so inclined. _Be on the other side; be the one coming back to me. I’ve got a hell of a lot to say to you_.

Collectively, the Inquisition held their breath and stood clear. Sera and the other Elves began flinching, backing away and retreating from the noise. Just outside of where the circle of mages had cast their spell, Cullen stood, with the fingers of his right hand splayed over the knuckles of his left, eyes rapt on the foreign mage. In a flicker, a dark leather-clad figure appeared at his side, under his ridiculously large hat.

Bull had never seen the spirit touch anyone unless he was killing. He only realized it now because the spirit boy reached out to touch the Commander’s arm, very gently, like a fluttering bird against his vambrace. Tipping his hat up, his thin lips moved, below the level the mercenary could hear. Cullen turned his head toward the boy, lips parting uncertainly, then looked back toward the mage. His arms dropped, hand grabbing the hilt of his sword tensely, and Cole backed away as the Fereldan man’s boots scuffed on the grass.

“Dorian,” he called urgently.

Silver-gray eyes slid down to him, and just a faint hint of smile made it through his intent expression. “Move back, _Mellitus; mea Bellator_. Be safe.”

“Dorian!” he spoke again, but he was moving back, and at his outthrust arm, the rest of the recruits and mages behind him moved back. The rift brightened as the scream of the energy build-up became almost intolerable.

Turning her head back, Adaar called over her shoulder, “ _Brace yourselves!”_

“ _Dorian!_ ” Cullen’s feet moved without thought, jerking forward. “ _I love y_ -”

Shattering the shrill noise, the sound like a crack of thunder right overhead burst over the scene. Just like before, the company was tossed away. The archers at the battlements had taken shelter behind the crenellations, and Bull had grabbed Adaar this time, tucking her in against his chest as he turned his back on the rift. The two _Vashoth_ staggered; her horns cut his upper arm, and Cullen was thrown.

Alexius braced against the smithy door, and Vivienne and Fiona had dropped prudently to the ground. Recruits and mages had been thrown off their feet here and there, and were being helped by their wincing comrades. Sera had ducked inside when the noise got too loud, and had been spared from slipping off the roof, at least. Now she poked her head cautiously back out the window, and Bull rose to his full height, bringing Junou to her feet with him.

Scanning the area, The Iron Bull found that the rift was still in place, though dimmed. Like a chrysanthemum from the Halamshiral Royal Gardens in full bloom, it graced the air with an ominous beauty, overshadowing the upper courtyard with a slow, steady pulse. Catching her breath, Adaar spat to the side. “Wish we could destroy that thing.”

“No,” Dagna stumbled forward, clutching a long-handled clamp in one hand, squeezing a cracked lyrium-infused crystal at arms’ length. Raising it, she ran a critical eye over the blackened, shattered mass, and huffed out a sigh. “Inquisitor,” the Arcanist gulped in a breath. “You can’t destroy it yet!”

Bull was looking around the area already. Somehow, he had expected that, having accomplished their goal, his lover would suddenly reappear, as quickly and quietly as he had left. His chest felt heavy and tight when he realized that wasn’t the case.

“Did we…” Adaar pushed a loose lock of hair behind one pointed ear, blue eyes scanning the landscape even as her fingers encircled Bull’s wrist. “Did we fail?”

“No, we didn’t!” Shaking her head eagerly, Dagna jerked her chin up at the anomaly. “That’s why we can’t destroy it! Remember? There’s an eighteen-hour time delay!”

Alexius made his way over to the younger Dwarven woman with a nod of his head, body moving as though he felt his age. “Your Arcanist has the right of it, Inquisitor,” he concurred, with the gruff voice of a man whose action days should rightly be long over. “In fact, because the anomaly has grown so rapidly, there may even be a greater Time displacement now.” Gazing upward at the crystallized tear between the Fade and other worlds, he added, “Besides - Dorian will close the rift once he reaches his side.”

“Will you help me run the numbers, Magister Alexius?” Dagna chirruped eagerly up at him. Bull was certain Dorian had never been quite so chipper, but perhaps something of her audacity stirred a familiar memory, because one corner of his mouth struggled to rise.

“Please, Lady Dagna - I’m hardly a Magister, rotting away in your basement as I do. But yes, I’ll certainly aid your calculations.” He paused and tilted his head to the _Vashoth_ woman. “By your leave, Herald.” She nodded stiffly and watched him shuffle away in Dagna’s wake.

“Dorian… shit, the _other_ Dorian...”

“Rutherford?” Bull grunted, feeling just as awkward as she with the distinction.

“Right. He asked me to be generous with the man. It’s easy to forget how dangerous he can be when you see him like this. What do you think, Bull?” She asked, eyes sliding up to him.

“Hard to say,” he rumbled, feeling ambivalent about the question overall. “Anything can be dangerous if you push it hard enough.” He tilted his head. “Maybe ask our Dorian.”

“Guess you have some heavy-duty waiting to do,” she muttered, patting his arm. A sudden clank of metal distracted them both, and they turned their heads.

Lying in the grass even still, Cullen drew his knees up, one metal-clad arm over his eyes, obscuring his face from view. Adaar and Bull exchanged looks, and waved off a healer who was going around to check that everyone had made it through uninjured. After a long silence, the man dropped his arm down onto the ground with a thick rattle of metal plates, pauldrons crunching in the grass, fur mantle framing his pale hair.

“C’mon Commander,” Bull found himself calling, and reached down to offer a hand up. The man gazed blankly up at the rift for a long, cold beat, and then his squinting eyes slid to meet the mercenary’s gaze. Before he could move, Adaar was there on the other side, reaching down for him with her good hand as well.

Thumping his head back against the ground, the Fereldan man laughed, very softly. It wasn’t a pleasant sound - bitterness leaked out of his closed eyes and manifested in the sharp, hard swallow that worked through the stubble at his throat. At last he reached up both hands, however, and each of the _Vashoth_ grabbed one, righting him onto his feet almost too quickly for him to get his boots under him.

Facing away from his troops, Cullen released their hands, and raised one fist to rub at his forehead, the other parked on his hip. He looked tired, worn; lines in his face that had been softened the last few days were marked sharply into his pale flesh again. “ _Maker_ ,” he whispered, an accusational invocation. Bull tilted his head, but said nothing. “I’m so -”

Whatever he thought he was, he didn’t say. He just curled his hands up against the breastplate of his armor, the right hand covering the left, both still gloved in their leather gauntlets under the vambraces. He rubbed the left as though he’d dipped it in ice, his thumb and forefinger squeezing around the ring that hid underneath. His chin fell heavily, looking demolished.

Concerned, Junou looked down at him, frowning, and then up at Bull. He shook his head, jerked his chin at the Commander, then sharply _away_. With at least an inkling of comprehension, the Inquisitor reached out and put a hand on his arm. “There’s nothing for you to do here, Cullen. Why don’t you go -”

When she spoke, he opened his eyes, then blinked owlishly at the ground, startled. Passing by his comrades without a word, he strode over to a spot in the grass where something flickered beneath the rift. Stooping, he picked it up, and turned around, blinking at it in astonishment. In his hand, he held a gold necklace.

“Isn’t that…?” Adaar breathed.

“Yeah,” Bull frowned. “That’s the Pavus family birthright,” he acknowledged. He’d seen it countless times, after all. Hell, it had even been used as a prop in the bedroom once or twice - he’d know the damn thing anywhere. This was the ruined one that had been used to open the rift. “I guess somehow he got taken, and it got left behind.”

“That’s because it levitated with the force of the spellcasting,” Cullen recalled aloud, frowning with deep concern, “...and he’d channeled the spell into himself.” His eyes slid up to take them both in. “Without this, will he even be able to close the rift?”

Uneasily, Junou shook her head. “I… don’t know. In Redcliffe, he said we _had_ to have that amulet to do the job.”

“Yeah,” Bull pointed out cautiously, licking his lips. “But he _made_ this one into a key. Couldn’t he make another one?”

“What if it’s specifically tied to this rift?” Junou guessed, frowning in perplexed concern as she scratched the base of one horn. “I guess… Dagna and Alexius have some work to do,” she sighed. “But if…” she paused, glanced at Bull. “When _our_ Dorian gets back, maybe he’ll know. Or… or maybe he’ll be able to close it from this side,” she began hopefully.

Without a word of consultation to either of the _Vashoth_ , Cullen put the thing around his own neck, tucked in carefully behind his gorget with a tinkling sound of metal chain on armor. Adaar seemed too surprised to say much of anything about it, and Bull knew better than to dare. Without hearing an objection from either of them, the Commander stalked off with long, intent strides, toward his own tower.

Sighing, the blue-eyed woman muttered, “ _Defransdim_.”

“Hey, you want your Tama to wash your mouth out with soap?” Bull teased her faintly, his own smile coming fake and sharp.

“You know, I wrote a letter to his Inquisitor?” she confided. “I told her he seemed contrite. Now I feel like I should have told her to throw the book at him.” Curling her fingers, she punched him in the arm as hard as she could. “Go kill eighteen hours.”

As a soldier, he’d spent his entire life waiting, in one form or another. This time, he had a few rounds of the strongest drink he could rustle up, then terrorized Krem and Grim in the ring until they begged off, then took any other challengers he could come across. Then a bath - a good bath, the kind that Dorian would approve of. The kind he’d want to get the mage in bed after. Then he slept. A runner woke him up with the estimated time Alexius and Dagna had calculated.

That left enough time to get a meal. Then he fucked around in the library and absorbed the scent of dust, candle wax, and bound books that Dorian carried with him. Paper, vellum, parchment, and ink. Something about that triggered his memory. Thoughtfully, he reached his hand into his belt pouch. Letters from Dorian Rutherford, smooth and crisp under his fingers.

_The Iron Bull,_

_You’ll forgive me, but I’m not sure what there is to say that has not already been said between us. I have apologized to you - but I know that my words have been inadequate in conveying my regret at the sequence of events that has deprived you of your Dorian. My fervent hope is that it is successfully reversed, by the time you remember to read this letter - and that you will eventually forgive my selfishness._

_If I fail to restore your lover to you, then I ask that the Maker find a way to strike me down for it. You have suffered enough, I think; and if my doppleganger’s life has been anything like my own, he also deserves better than to pay for my selfishness. I was quite foolhardy, but not so intentionally malicious as I must appear to be in your eyes._

_I appreciate your generosity with me, despite everything, in both accommodation and consideration, during my stay. I confess that I was so eager to make up for my mistake that I had not the full luxury of time I would have liked to spend renewing your acquaintance. As I’ve said before, The Iron Bull of my world was a man of whom I was surprisingly fond, and I have often been stricken with regret at his loss._

_Seeing you again has brought his kindness to mind, and I missed him terribly. I apologize if that made you uncomfortable. It certainly made me feel so, and at times I did not know what to say to you. Yet you swallowed your pride and allowed me to be with Cullen, with your blessing. Were you anyone else, I would say that you do not know what it meant to me. But it is you. So I suspect you indeed were aware._

_I have contemplated the small signs of distress you have shown at the mention of my counterpart in our discourse. At first I believed these to be worry or attachment, but have concluded that there is more to it. Surely you must fear what the future would hold for the two of you. Indeed, I cannot readily envision a world in which the two of you could be full-time companions - so long as he could make a difference in Tevinter, he will be drawn to it. I would have been. And you - my friend, you change the world in your own ways._

_Alone, neither of you can push the needle very far. Together, with those of like mind, you continue to advance the lines of battle against ignorance, fear, and injustice. You will always be comrades, even if not companions. I want you to be aware, in case he is too much of a coward to tell you, that you make a difference to him every day you draw breath._

_Your affection and acceptance - I’m sure there are times when it frightens him; scares him to want to give into it. He’s afraid it will weaken him, leave a gap where others more nefarious could penetrate his defenses, could take advantage. But you offer as much or as little as he wants for the taking, as milk to the starving cat. How could he not care for you?_

_He will understand, whatever it is that you decide you want, and will accept it, even if it pains him. You have done enough; more than most. However, I do not think he would be capable of replacing you in his affections, if that matters to you. You are his Amatus_. _Forgive him his many flaws if you can - or at least, do not take them to heart. They reflect more on his own damaged spirit than on your worthiness._

_“All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” He is not a good man, perhaps. But he wanted to be, once. He wanted people to have the choice to be good. I hope - and he hopes, I’m sure - that you can understand that. You are a good man also, and you are not the type to do nothing when wrong presents itself to you. It’s rather put you into a predicament, hasn’t it? Do not lose that courage. Remember to watch your blind spot._

_Highest regards and affection,_

_Ser Dorian Rutherford, most recently of Ferelden_

Privately, he thought, it was the sort of letter that would take a long time to truly understand. He read it through again, but much of it was still mysterious. It was difficult to focus on anything right now. Surely the time was getting close?

He delivered the last of the letters around Skyhold - left Junou her letter, and left Sera alone with her. Listened to Dagna prattle about Dorian’s research in the packet he’d left for her, and all the help he’d provided, and then he climbed up to the southern tower. Knocking on the Commander’s door, he let himself in, and waited for him to look up. The look on Cullen’s face was fraught, but he nodded, without a word.

“It’s time,” was the last thing he said, before he turned and sauntered around his desk, on his way out the northern rampart door. Around his neck, the birthright pendant scraped the gorget of his armor, reminding him to tuck it back away again as he went. Bull followed him as though he were in a dream. It was as though they both were half in the Fade - walking forward, not speaking, unable to break away from their thoughts.

“Cullen,” he managed at last, sensing the need to breach the distance the man left around himself, and worried for the Fereldan man’s well-being - and, just a little, his own as well. He reached out to touch the curved elbow plate of his armor, but his hand missed because the Commander ensured that he could not be touched.

“Let us not be late,” he said brusquely. “I hope he -” his words caught in his throat as they descended to the courtyard. “I hope he is well,” he managed at last. Bull didn’t ask who, or rather which, he meant. He nodded though, and they made their way up to the upper courtyard.

Adaar, Dagna, even Alexius had been permitted out to witness the outcome and provide consultation in his expert field if required. They all stood before the quiescent rift, waiting in silence in the late sunset. The mages had been ordered to disengage with their spellcasting for some time, and the patrol had been suppressing all demon appearances for the time being.

The waiting was awful; each minute passed by like ten, to Bull’s thinking. He forced himself to stand still, arms crossed with hands tucked in, and Dagna smiled sympathetically at him as he itched to move, at last giving into an uneasy pacing motion. Cullen stood next to Adaar, and the two of them gazed up at the rift in near silence for a long time. She left him to his thoughts eventually, once Sera showed up and started to fuss at all the long faces present.

Almost before he realized what occurred, the rift flared brightly, lighting up the courtyard like midday. This time, it was silent. Adaar quickly threw up a handful of magelights, to preserve their vision, and they watched the rift resonate with light, breathlessly. A shaft of sun-bright illumination came down, as it had when the other Dorian manipulated the rift before. Cullen kept close to the rift, staring up at it with a face like a mabari at its owner’s funeral.

_Kadan_ , Bull thought quietly, and closed his eye against the flash of brightness.

When it died down, darkening the inside of his eyelid, he found the rift dimmed, and the company frozen in place, and under the rift, one dark-haired mage, standing with his staff in both hands. After a long pause, he holstered it behind his back and straightened the bare-shouldered jacket of his outrageously fashionable robe. Bull sucked in a silent breath as his heart throbbed once and then clenched taut, hands squeezed to stillness beneath his elbows.

“By the Maker, I do hope I have the right address,” he managed in a pithy, but shaky voice. A soft sigh went through those present; a group acknowledgement that it was _a_ Dorian - and clearly not the _previous_ one. But was it _their_ Dorian? The risk had never been clarified - even Alexius and Dagna couldn’t predict...

In the light of the magelights and the sunset, he took in what details he could. This was obviously a Dorian Pavus who still felt a strong tie to his _altus_ roots, judging by his attire. In fact, it was even the same outfit he’d worn the morning after their last assignation. He swallowed hard, heart beating faster. Short, dark hair, cropped down to a soft velvet around his ears, that familiar smirk masking his unease, the flared curl of his moustache - he looked good. Looked _right._ The mercenary dared to breathe again, tentatively.

Dagna hummed speculatively and went back to the table, busying herself with its contents. This version of Dorian looked around at everyone he saw, though taken completely aback by Alexius’ presence. Not _shocked_ , like he shouldn’t be there, but surprised. They exchanged wary nods and Dorian’s eyes fell on Cullen, who stood closest.

Bull watched carefully as his eyes slid over the Commander’s face and form, speculatively. At last, another careful nod emerged. “Commander,” he acknowledged. Cullen had stilled once their eyes made contact, and from behind, Bull only saw a tiny dip of a reflexive nod, and Dorian looked away from him, though his eyes lingered on a moment before turning.

“Hello, Dorian,” Adaar called, and his eyes lit up briefly as she stepped closer into view.

“Junou!” he cried, his shoulders loosening in something approximating relief. “Well, that’s the right _Inquisitor_ , at least.” A real smile spread over his face, and then… _then_ he caught sight of Bull, hanging back carefully in the rear, arms folded.

In a way, he hadn’t wanted to be the first to be noticed. He didn’t want to… jinx it, maybe; to feel that same agony he’d felt in Cullen’s office, three weeks ago, when it felt like the man he loved had passed him by for a passionate embrace with another. The _Tal-Vashoth_ unfolded his arms carefully, but he didn’t move at first, hands curling into anxious fists even his _Hissrad_ training couldn’t smooth away.

Still, he felt the way Dorian’s gaze flickered over his face and stance - a bewildering mix of reactions chasing one another across his face. Relief, perhaps - delight, then wariness. A tender vulnerability that he fought to keep from his face, even as it flickered in his eyes.

_Is this him? Is he mine?_ A small hand on his own caught his attention away, and Dagna stood next to him, offering up the dragon tooth pendant with a sly sort of look. He took it gratefully, and tied it around his neck, where it belonged. After this, he found himself looking back at Dorian, with a slightly challenging look. _Well?_

Eyes drifting down to where the necklace lay past his collarbone, the Tevinter man’s lips curled in a softer approximation of his usual smirk. Raising his right hand, he revealed himself to be clutching the mate, the other missing half of the necklace - the thing that, if Cole could be believed, had drawn him across all the worlds to reach this one.

“Oh, just go to him already,” Sera hollered from her seat on the edge of the tavern’s roof, clunky boots swinging. Behind her, Krem leaned in her window, Bull noticed and snorted a laugh; his arms were crossed on the sill with a smirk on his face. “Andraste’s perky _tits_ , Sparklearse!”

Startled out of him, a bark of a laugh caused most of those assembled to grin. Dorian’s fingers curled around the tooth and he was throwing himself forward, straight past Cullen, and Adaar stood aside for him. She smirked as Bull finally let out the breath he had been holding.

_He’s mine_. Bull didn’t know it for sure, but still he _knew_ it somewhere in his bones, all the same. He moved forward to meet the smaller man, and rather than stop in one another’s orbits, as they would ordinarily have done, he reached forward and let his hands find that trim, sharp waist that felt so perfect in his grip. Without hesitation, he lifted his lover, and Dorian’s arms came around his neck without hesitation.

“ _Amatus_ ,” he murmured, and Bull smothered the sound of it into his mouth as Dorian’s knees wrapped around his hips. Hands gathering and lifting him, the _Tal-Vashoth_ kissed him - probably for the first time - in front of all of Skyhold, _altus_ reticence be damned. Dorian groaned against his lips and curled the fingers of his empty hand into the strap of his harness, nails scratching over his bare shoulder. Tongue in his mouth, he squeezed the muscle of Dorian’s lower back with one hand, making him melt with another sound of appreciation. “Did you - miss me?” the mage demanded between shorter, softer kisses.

“Every minute, _Kadan_. Gonna keep you on a leash,” he growled, bending forward just enough to make Dorian cling to him all the harder, one hand under his rear and the other cradling his head. His pulse was heavy and fast where Bull’s fingertips brushed his skin, and he broke a last, lingering kiss to set the mage down onto his feet.

“Oh, that’d be fun to explain to everyone,” he teased back in a whisper. The _altus_ was grinning a little - glowing with it, with their reunion, the attention and praise - but he still looked self-conscious. His masks, usually so unshakeable, were thin now, and the fear leaked from him in ways the slighter man would never admit to.

“I don’t give a _fuck_ ,” he replied frankly, his voice low, and watched Dorian’s face shift in open surprise. “I’ve spent a long time - too long - keeping quiet about us, like there was even a single person who didn’t know about us around here,” he pointed out, and his hands rose to capture the Tevinter man’s jaw, tenderly, between his palms. “I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable, because you didn’t want the attention; but now I think I let you believe I was _ashamed_ of you,” Bull explained bluntly. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Shaken slightly, the gray-eyed man swallowed hard, one hand rising to touch the outside of the mercenary’s hand on his cheek. “Bull,” he said softly, uncertain.

Lowering his hand, he pressed his fingers, delicately, to that one little spot at the base of his neck, just above his clavicle. It was the spot he’d touched so many times when they were alone; the place where another Cullen had touched another version of his _Kadan_ to make him feel safe. “ _Nothing_ could be further from the truth,” he repeated with emphasis, and Dorian seemed to feel a jolt, his eyes suddenly bright with a suspicious moisture. After a long, steady stare, he nodded, dropping his gaze. “Don’t ever disappear like that again, _Kadan_.”

Dorian’s lips parted as he sought air, and Bull pulled him close enough to rest lips on his forehead briefly. He kissed each of his eyelids, making them flutter, and ran one thumb across his full bottom lip. “I didn’t want to,” he insisted, sulking a bit. “I don’t…” and then the sound of a sigh as he pulled the _altus_ into his arms again, breathed out into the crook of his neck where he leaned over his mage, arms curling possessively around his waist. It was the sound one made when everything was right with the world.

Taking in a great, steadying breath, Bull caught the scent of him - spices and Dorian, and something clean and sweet in his hair, and he worried that he wouldn’t be able to keep it together long enough to get them into private. Standing and loosening his arms, if not his grip, he saw the back of one thumb swipe abortively at each gray eye before Dorian looked up at him. His smile was radiant.

Curling the mage into his side closely, Bull glanced around at the others. Adaar gave him a distracted smile, and then glanced back to the conversation she was having with Alexius and Dagna. Sera seemed quite satisfied with the outcome overhead, as did Krem, who was making a lecherous gesture at him. Hovering next to Sera on the edge of the roof, knees jutting upward and hands draped over them, was Cole. His gaze was focused unerringly on the Commander.

Standing with his head craned back, the golden-haired Fereldan gazed upward into the rift, his left hand resting on the hilt of his sword, his right out of sight before his chest. No one approached him, not even the boy once named Compassion. Several of Cullen’s recruits looked at Dorian, clinging to Bull’s side, and then glanced back to their Commander, with looks of empathy, or impatience, or confusion.

“Well, so glad everyone’s happy I have returned,” Dorian murmured.

He squeezed gently. “Don’t feel bad, _Kadan_. They are happy. Only, things have been a bit, eh… what’s that word you like to use?”

“...Fraught, perhaps?” His brows drew in heavily.

“That’s the one,” he nodded, letting his hand fall low enough to smooth over the other man’s hip. “I’m sure Junou will let us sneak away any moment now…”

“Dorian! Cole?”

“You were saying?” Lids falling heavily over a knowing smirk, the _altus_ tolerated the fact that Bull remained glued to him as they walked forward. By the time they reached the small circle of the Inquisitor’s allies, Cole was already on the ground, gazing speculatively between Dorian and The Iron Bull.

“Two halves fit back together,” he nodded sagely. “The string through the keyhole was enough,” he explained. Although he had been the only one present at the time, Bull’s look of comprehension was apparently enough to reassure their companions.

“Well, if that means what I think it means,” Adaar began, brows rising in an elegant arch, “...then I’m glad you’re back, Dorian. You’re in _so_ much trouble, of course.”

“Now that is patently unfair,” he protested. “I have committed no misdeeds except trying to get home again,” he explained, his hand tightening in the small of his lover’s back. Bull smoothed a hand over his bare shoulder with a massaging circle of his thumb.

“She knows, _Kadan_. She was just worried.”

“I won’t keep you any longer than I have to, though of course I want to hear everything you can tell me later, Dorian,” her blue eyes flickered over to him, one corner of her mouth tucking upward. “However, we do have a small problem still remaining.”

“Oh?” Standing upright, Dorian frowned at her, and then at the others in the circle.

“Dorian - sorry, the _other_ Dorian,” she rubbed her forehead between her horns wearily, “...was supposed to seal the rift from his side once he had emerged,” she pointed out, gesturing upward toward it. “In fact, he and Alexius have established…”

“...It will become unstable if left unregulated,” the _altus_ frowned, looking at her, and then at Alexius. “Gereon, my understanding is that the Inquisitor’s mark was a portion of the catalyst for the transference, and therefore cannot be utilized to close the rift.”

Nodding somberly, the elder mage added, “Not only that, but your… _counterpart_ , and I, theorized that if we attempted to destroy or unmake the physical manifestation of the rift, we could potentially create a permanent rupture of the Veil.” He took in a breath, seeing the flare of comprehension in his former apprentice’s eyes. “Particularly so if acted upon in haste.”

“I… had it on good authority,” Dorian paused and cleared his throat with care, then adjusted the gloves on his hands as though delicately aligning their seams. “...that, if this counterpart is the one from the world I was transported to, he may in fact be considered the, ah, _culprit_ of the entire debacle.”

“I thought as much,” Adaar sighed. “You’re sure of that?”

“Did you have access to his notes and papers?” Alexius inquired, frowning.

“I did, but it was rather the interference of a certain Mistress Mia Cedric which provided the necessary insight,” Dorian was still content to lounge against the _Tal-Vashoth_ ’s hip, under his arm, and he might have guessed from the stress of his voice that it was no mere indulgence, but rather a need to feel safe. “Apparently the culprit confessed his intentions to her in full, and she… felt it necessary to intervene.”

He looked up across the circle after this pronouncement, and Bull followed his gaze to find Cullen’s jaw clenching emotively, even though he confined the extent of his reaction behind his accustomed stoicism. Dorian looked away as quickly as their eyes met, glancing at the Inquisitor and Alexius in turn. “It took her some time to arrive from South Reach, but she brought his letters when she arrived, and when paired with his notes, it revealed a surprising amount of information regarding the construction of the artificial rifts,” he explained, with that tinge of intellectual excitement under his words, fingers lacing briefly. “There were quite a few friendly faces missing in that version of Skyhold,” he added softly, “...so her help was actually vital.”

Dorian had just returned from a world, Bull reminded himself, where his lover’s counterpart was dead, and so was his own counterpart’s spouse, and his mentor as well. His hand climbed a little, thumb tracing an idle track down the back of Dorian’s neck. Cullen watched them without jealousy, but there was a brittleness in his eyes. “At least you made it back,” the mercenary offered, in his most conciliatory tone.

Dorian snorted. “Indeed. Mistress Cedric and Inquisitor Trevelyan are probably taking turns handing him his arse as we speak,” he observed drily, amused.

Impatiently, Junou cut to the chase. “Do you think you can close the rift from this side?” she asked.

“What?” Dorian’s chin jerked back. “No, of course not. I don’t have the amulet focus.”

“That’s the problem,” she pointed out. “He used it to get back, but somehow it got left behind in this world when the transfer occurred.” She turned and nudged Cullen’s arm gently. “Come on, show him.”

All eyes fell on the Commander, who scowled bluntly, and then reluctantly reached into the neck of his armor, pulling the gold amulet up past his gorget. Dorian watched this process with some incredulity, though Bull could feel a rivet of tension running through him. Cullen was obviously somewhat reluctant to hand it over, though he only expressed this with the slowness of his movements to unhook the chain and clasp it back, stepping forward across their half circle with his hand extended, the necklace resting in his palm.

Stepping away from Bull’s side at last, Dorian reached out a long set of fingers to pluck it up, without making contact with Cullen. Eyes fastened to it, the Commander allowed him to step back and regard it. It was clear how much it disturbed Dorian to see it; his free hand grasped at the front of his robe uneasily as though to reassure himself that this desecration had happened to _someone else_ , not himself. Inhaling shakily, he asked in a strangled voice, “ _Why?_ ”

Most of those present didn’t have any answers. Cullen cleared his throat in a long, uncomfortable fashion. “Y- his father… didn’t agree with his choices,” he said at last. “Regardless… he made his decision,” he added after the Tevinter man merely stared at him in some flavor of shock for a moment. “He was disowned, as you can see. Some time after he… became a widower… he enchanted it to act as the focus amulet for the rifts.”

“Impressive work, on its own,” Alexius rumbled from his own corner of the circle, one set of fingers stroking the scruff on his chin thoughtfully as his eyes narrowed. “The amulet used in Redcliffe is one we specially developed from inception for that specific purpose. This is another advancement in the field, but it may or may not have been a factor in the success or failure of the attempt,” he pointed out.

Dorian’s shoulders rose as he sucked in a breath, and he frowned down into the palm of his hand as he summoned his mana. The object began to glow, and he tilted his head as he channelled magic into it. After only a short while, he released the spell and shook his head.

“I don’t know that I can do it from here,” he admitted. “I need time to study it further, when I’m not so drained.” He curled his fingers around the amulet, but Cullen’s palm was suddenly thrust forth before him, expectantly but silently demanding the return of the jewelry. Puzzled, Dorian looked at him, his mouth tightening even as he met the Fereldan man’s unyielding stare.

“Come find me tomorrow,” he suggested coolly, “when you are ready to begin.”

Adaar gazed at the Commander’s outthrust hand, but said nothing. Bull leaned down toward Dorian and nuzzled into his hair gently. “Give it to him,” he suggested, speaking low enough that only the _altus_ could hear him. “I’ll explain later.” Reluctantly, he surrendered it, one last touch to the amulet beneath his own clothes reassuring him that he hadn’t handed away his own birthright.

Bull turned Dorian away from them while Cullen hooked the chain around his own neck again. “Hey, _Kadan_ ,” he whispered, letting one hand drop around his waist again. “I can think of plenty more interesting things we could be doing.” Despite himself, Dorian’s moustache curled in the beginnings of a grin. “Missed you.”

“Oh? What sort of things?” he murmured back, and Bull reached down and scooped him up, hoisting him up over one shoulder over his protests. For all that the position lacked dignity, his mage wasn’t particularly fighting all that hard for his freedom, he noted smugly.

“Make sure you actually do some _resting_ when you go to bed!” Adaar yelled after him, and Bull waved over his shoulder as he carted his prize through the tavern and up the stairs, earning a few wolf-whistles and cheers as he did.

Pushing open his door above the tavern, Bull indulged in a gratuitous grope of Dorian’s ass, and barred all the doors before he put him down. Facing the mage’s narrow-eyed glare, he cast his staff aside gently and reached to put his hands on him again.

“And what exactly was with that ludicrous display?” He demanded. Though sharp, his words were entirely without heat. Bull let his hands roam freely over the top of his clothing, unhooking and unlacing here and there as Dorian fought to keep his eyes from drifting shut at the handling.

“Thought I made it pretty clear,” he remarked, sounding fairly patient, but he could hear the breathless undertone of his own voice, and wondered if the _altus_ could hear it too. “You’re mine, and I don’t care what anyone thinks. _Kadan_ ,” he whispered, leaning down as he freed the leather armor from around Dorian’s chest, and flung off his jacket afterward as well. “ _Kadan_ , I want to make you moan so loud _everybody_ knows who you belong to.”

Dorian’s eyes burned on him, lit him up; he barely even blinked, and it just sang through Bull’s veins because that attention felt so right. Arms came around his shoulders as he tipped the Tevinter man back, nuzzling into the crook of his neck - he smelled right, he _felt_ right, and he shuddered when Bull sucked a vivid bruise into his neck. “What - what’s brought this on?” he asked throatily.

“You give me something no one else gives me,” he admitted, seeing the gray eyes widen, his lips slackening just slightly in surprise. “Don’t get me wrong; sex with you is… _awesome_ ,” he assured the mage, raising both hands and getting a quirk of an eyebrow in return; the mage leaned away from him, rocked back on his heels to survey him wryly. “But, Dorian… I’m in it for more than that. What you give me is…” he shook his heavy horns, thoughtfully. “I never knew what it felt like before, or why it mattered. Under the Qun, it didn’t even exist. But now I know what it tastes like; I know I can’t get it anywhere else, and I don’t want to be without it,” he reached out both arms, letting his palms slide over the _altus_ ’ firm hips, thumbs grazing over his lowest ribs.

Hands braced on his biceps slackened, then curled tight again, and a frown came to the smaller man’s full lips even as he edged closer. Chin tipping up, he exhaled warmly against Bull’s chest, and grumbled, “So you’ve been thinking about this for a while,” he complained. “Leaving me to feel like the only one losing his grip on the boundaries of our relationship, you _unforgivable beast._ ”

Unable to keep the smile from spreading on his face, he hid it in the mage’s hair, taking a deep breath of him again. “Sorry, _Kadan_. Like I said, I didn’t want to scare you. I can tell...” he reached down and patted the mage’s tense thigh, which made him flinch slightly, “‘Bout twenty percent of you still wants to run, right now. But if you stay, I’ll make it worth it,” he promised. “Won’t stop ‘til you get tired of me.”

“Foolish man,” Dorian whispered, raising his head, then reaching up and grabbing his horns to tug him down again. All lips and teeth, and a tongue he’d been missing like a drug - he groaned and squeezed his mage tight to him, lifting him just enough that he could feel that little gasp of air against his mouth - before he knew what he was doing, he’d backed the smaller man into the empty half of his fancy little dressing table. Bottles clinked and clacked together as he pushed the _altus_ onto the tabletop, feeling thighs fall open for him. He at last released Dorian’s mouth, feeling the rapid panting of air against his lips, and he swallowed. “Foolish - I’ll never tire of you.”

Then he moaned when Bull pressed his thumbs all the way up the inside of his thighs, loosening the ties of his trousers before he yanked them down and off, along with his boots, with the ease of practice. Dorian was moaning around his tongue when the warrior lifted one of his legs higher, pinning the opposite hand against the stone wall behind them. “Oil,” he demanded. His mage's skin was fiery and fine, and glowed in the light just like good bourbon. His fingers would leave marks to bloom later on his inner thigh.

Free hand clattering against the bottles on his table, Dorian broke the kiss just long enough to turn his head and see what he was grabbing, but the tendons of his neck looked so taut and delicious that Bull dove in to put his mouth on him again, leaving marks, bruises against his beautiful dark skin. His fingers were massaging, teasing the flesh along his ribs and his hip, until the glass bottle was pressed into his palm.

Duty fulfilled, Dorian grabbed his horn underhanded with his left, pulling him in closer for another blood-stirring kiss. As he did, the _Tal-Vashoth_ managed to open the oil one-handed, and poured liberally over his abdominal muscles and lower. His body glistened in the faint light from the window, and Bull took great pleasure in gliding his hand through the mess over his stomach, pushing the oil down further.

Muscles twitching, his dark-skinned mage shivered and made a long, pleased groan when one calloused, oil-slicked hand wrapped around him. His head hit the wall, flushed lips gasping open when Bull stroked him, pulling the loose flesh back and up once more. Dorian arched his back, but couldn’t go far in this position, legs wrapped around his broader hips. Eagerly, he began the process of opening him, letting the mage clench tightly around his fingers, biting his lip when he inserted his first finger - the next to last, letting his thumb and first two fingers circle around the base of his cock delicately.

“Bull,” he whispered, silver eyes glinting up at him through his dark lashes. “Bull,” he repeated, “Not so gentle,” he pleaded softly, his lips quirking into a smile that was both bewitching and hungry.

“Alright,” he agreed, a hum of pleasure lacing through his stomach at the words. “Hands behind your back, sweetheart.” Sliding his hands into the space between his curved spine and the tabletop, Dorian let his own weight hold them immoble. Settling him better with his shoulders against the wall, Bull used both hands on him, trailing oily tracks over his skin, penetrating him with the other hand so that he threw his head back in a moan and opened his legs eagerly. “ _Fuck, Kadan._ ”

Working him to the edge, he scooped dripping oil onto his fingers and pushed it deep into him. Dorian’s breath caught in his throat, too tight to make a noise, but his muscles rippled with tension under the sheen of oil on his skin, all of him slick and glimmering as he rocked subtly. The warrior curled his fingers so that Dorian shuddered on the end of his fingertips, drops of fluid beading at the tip of his cock.

“ _Kaffas_ , Bull, please, please -” his words barely even slowed when he was kissed, mumbling into his mouth. “Fuck, I missed you,” he gasped as the larger man curled fingers into the most sensitive part inside him. “Ah, _Maker_.” He’d slowed his fingers so much that Dorian couldn’t have enough stimulation to climax, but this pretty begging drew another few lazy circles of his fingers inside, his thumb on the crown of his length, and the sound of a soft whine in his throat made the mercenary shiver at the sound of his need.

“Should I let you come?” He asked, his own voice sounding low in his chest. The question was a tease, because he already knew the answer.

“N-no,” he whispered, voice deep in his belly. “No,” he exhaled and nudged his nose under the larger man’s chin, lapping and then playfully biting there amidst the stubble. His voice spoke to three confusing and lonely weeks spent bereft of one another, tumbling out of him on a current of longing. “I want to come with you fucking me.”

“Yeah,” he groaned, kissing Dorian for the needy sound he made when Bull’s fingers slid out from inside of him. “I want that too.” The mage nodded weakly, and the _Tal-Vashoth_ carted him over to the bed without too much trouble, tossing him down before shucking his own clothing. Dorian was waiting for him, all eagerness, curling his hands up over his head as Bull leaned over him.

That oil was coming in handy now. He petted his pretty mage all over, watching him arch against the touch like a satisfied cat, stroking the oil down further all over his thighs. He pushed the _altus_ ’ knees together, and watched his eyes light up as he got the hint, locking his legs so that Bull could push between his thighs. Already hard and wanting, he worked himself into the narrow space until he was throbbing, eye closing as Dorian’s hand stroked his broader face lightly, coasting up to rub at the base of his horn.

Knowing the mage had calmed down a little, he pulled back and spread his thighs again, laying a kiss on each knee and working fingers into him again, he watched the flicker of tension and pleasure across his face. Dorian let his head fall back with an unsubtle moan as three fingers stretched him over and over. Ringed digits scratched at the back of his neck, and without conscious thought, he found himself moving up, pushing at his entrance, hips arching into him.

It was too soon, but the hands that clung to him urged him forward, and Dorian was moaning his name, whimpering a little as he pushed, as the flesh finally yielded to let just the head of his cock inside, still pressing him too tightly. _Gods this man is perfect_. Fast, heavy breaths against his mouth - Dorian wanted to be kissed again, and he found himself tilting the _altus_ ' chin back to better align for a kiss even as he withdrew, stretching him a little more as he slid inside again further.

Fingers working up into dark hair, he pulled gently with both hands, hearing a shudder of breath as the _altus_ beneath him went limp. He pushed in again while Dorian was relaxed, and slid in even further. “Fuck, so beautiful, _Kadan_ \- you feel so good,” he growled, sliding one hand under him to tilt his hips just so. “Feels so good,” he whispered again, and was answered with a moan so deep that he knew he hit the right spot inside.

Dorian’s hands left him and grabbed the back of his own thighs, curling into the right angle. Bull helped hold his hips in place, but also planted his other arm above his lover’s shoulder, knowing from experience that their momentum could be inconvenient. The mage’s body knew what to do; knew how to take him, how to clench and loosen just right around him.

“Bull, please - _ah_ \- right there,” he was saying, like his lover didn’t already know what he liked. But he gave it to him just like he asked for. His eyes were squeezed shut like it was all too intense for him. “ _Amatus_ ,” he breathed.

“ _Kadan_ ,” he answered; he wanted to say, _don’t leave me again_ , but he knew that wasn’t in the cards for them, and that was just the honest truth. “Love you,” he said instead. _Please let it be enough._ “Love you so fucking much, you don’t even know.”

Dorian’s eyes fell open, and he kept his own gaze on his lover’s. Once, the man called The Iron Bull was known as _Liar_. His lover had once lived in a different, fancier cage of lies. But here, in this short window of borrowed time, they could throw that away. He wanted to be seen for who he was, and he wanted to be bold enough not to look away from seeing who Dorian was.

“Yes,” he breathed back, his tongue tripping, surprised, but honest. “ _Yes_ ,” he agreed emphatically. “Maker, yes. I -” a deep shudder took him. “Bull, I’m yours,” he swore quietly; it was enough. _They_ were enough. And this wasn’t the end. He squeezed his hand around Dorian’s length and drew him over the finish line with hard, fast strokes, watching every sinew in his body go sharp and tight, a keening noise from his throat as his dark brows knit. Clenching helplessly, his flushed, soft flesh clamped down on his _Tal-Vashoth_ lover, and it was fucking incredible. He shuddered as he spilled deep into Dorian’s body.

The world went a little dark, even, and he found himself falling forward a little, smelling his lover all around him, feeling the heat radiating up from his skin. They were sticky, and oily, and filthy, and he couldn’t give a damn. Instead he just held Dorian to him, rolling onto his back so that they could be close without crushing him, and did his best to kiss every bare inch of skin that he’d missed for the past three weeks. Fingers traced patterns on his skin, silver eyes seeking his before settling closed, cheek pillowed on his shoulder. He looked utterly content.

This was enough. This moment was everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ghetto Latin:
> 
> _Tam pulcher aspectu_ \- What a beautiful sight
> 
> _Tu canis_ \- You dog
> 
> _Scio potes facis hunc!_ \- I know you can do this!
> 
> and Qunlat:  
>  _Defransdim_ \- genitals (lit., _intimate friends_ ) [like saying "Bollocks!" for example]
> 
> ...Wait, where are you going, Cullrianites? Come back!!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I knew you’d fall for my dashing good looks eventually,” he chuckled, though it was a touch breathless - a cover for something else. “But Maker, three years late? _Really,_ Cullen. There’s _fashionably_ late, and then there’s just _late_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg guys. This one is really long (~25k). I'm (so, so) sorry (?). Hopefully worth the read (?).
> 
> So this chapter takes place exactly 3 weeks after Chapter One! [9-10 Guardian 9:44 Dragon] Crazy.  
> Sneak preview of a new installment in the series at the end, still WIP.

The room hadn’t been so empty since he’d pushed aside the cobwebs, stepped over the rubble, and moved in. It was peaceful, at least - all the interest in Skyhold was mostly elsewhere right now, and it was late. He barred the doors, knowing he’d likely be undisturbed regardless.

There was plenty of time, now. He caught up on some reports - easy things, things he could trust Rylen and Briony had filed correctly, and he could just scribble a signature and go. He did everything he could that didn’t require more thought, and then he found himself staring at paragraphs of texts that simply went on and on because he couldn’t comprehend them.

Sitting upright, he realized it was dark. Surely that was part of the problem? He’d left the candles unlit in the daytime, and he’d gotten out of the habit, these past… days. A lifetime of habit broken so easily. Dorian had flicked a mere finger whenever he moved to find a flint, and…

_It was real… wasn’t it?_ He pulled the birthright out of his armor and held it in his hand again. It smelled like metal and oakmoss, his own cologne, now. He traced his fingers over the brutal divots in the metal. Even damaged, it might be the most valuable item in this office. The gemstones alone…

They were soft, rounded where he pressed his lips to them, where he rubbed his thumb over the shapes. _He was here. He wore this. He tore the Veil for me_. But it wasn’t for him, was it? He tried to push the amulet away, knowing that focusing on it only made the disconnection more obvious. He would put it aside. Everything would be fine.

Cullen couldn’t leave it alone, and soon it was back around his neck, where it belonged. Another burden to carry, but at least he had two good legs to bear it with. At least he _chose_ it. He closed his eyes and rose to his feet. Eating was part of his mission, now, and he found his way down to the kitchen. He had to ask for the pot to be heated now, because Dorian had been the one taking up that labor, and he had to hurry back so that it was still hot when he reached his office.

He ate alone, and it was hard to push it down when he concentrated exclusively on the meal. But he’d felt _better_ when he wasn’t alone, and Dorian had said it was partially because he ate more, so he had to believe it. He didn’t finish his repast, but he did well enough that he thought the former _altus_ would be proud. He covered the plate and pushed it away, fingertips drumming on the top of the desk.

“ _Five bites, please_.” Cullen jumped half out of his skin when Cole spoke next to him.

“ _Maker_ , Cole. I thought we had an arrangement,” he said, sounding somewhat more peevish than intended. The spirit boy had long since sent him letters, or messengers, but he’d rarely put in an appearance in the Commander’s office.

“It was easy to be proud of _you_ ,” the boy told him, a frown creasing his features even as he spoke, sorting it all out in his mind. The concept of more than one world seemed to baffle him as much, if not moreso, than the others. “So easy to be proud of you when you’ve come so far on your own.”

“I’m… glad to hear it,” he answered uncertainly, hearing the weary gruffness of his own tone in the semi-dark. “You don’t have to be here with me,” he added, seeing Cole shift at the corner of his desk. He was crouching, and his broad hat peeked up over the top. “I’m okay, Cole. I will be,” he amended.

“ _Good that he’s back. We’ve got the right one; but Maker, it’s the wrong one_ ,” Cole was saying, his words firmly regimented but distant. “Traitorous heart hopes for failure, hopes to have, to hold tighter. When I walk in the room, the sun lights up his face like the parhelia he brought with him. _Maker’s Blessing_ , says Mother; most auspicious.”

That was all it took to remind him of the man’s smile; Dorian - _his_ Dorian - had always transformed when he’d realized he wasn’t alone. Swallowing, Cullen nodded faintly. Now where was he? Maybe Mia would take care of him, for her dead brother’s sake. Perhaps he would be okay knowing someone loved him, even a little. Bowing his head, he scrubbed one gloved hand back through his hair.

“What am I supposed to do, Cole?” he asked, very low. “It’s over… I thought I…” _Sweet Andraste, am I ever an idiot_. He chuckled grimly. “I was so damn _arrogant_ ,” he muttered, looking across the top of his desk - the desk where Dorian had made love to him not two days ago - at the gray-blue eyes through the wispy curtain of ragged blonde locks, thinking distantly of the way they’d curled up in the loft afterward, warm skin against his body, like he could never have outside of that stolen time. “I never - I... suppose I thought it wasn’t real love, at first,” he admitted softly. “I thought it wouldn’t matter, or that - that he would fail to move me. That it would be too much, or too awkward, and…”

“But it wasn’t awkward,” Cole mouthed back at him, equally soft. “It was wonderful. You fit inside him in so many ways. I belong here,” he said, his intonation changing as he drew from Cullen’s own thoughts once more. “I belong here and he belongs with me; sun to my shade, warm to my cold. Fit him by my side and never send him back to that loneliness; for now, I can be what you need.”

“That’s quite enough of that,” he rumbled, irritated and disgusted at hearing himself, more than anything. “It wasn’t meant to be,” he told the spirit - told them both - with finality. “If it were, then… then Andraste and the Maker would have put us in the same world. His husband would have lived, or I… would have been brave enough long ago, before Dorian fell in love.”

“You weren’t ready then,” Cole replied, his eyes widening as though surprised Cullen could be unaware. “He wasn’t ready either.”

“Well, what about the other two, then?” Cullen found himself rubbing his gloved hand over his lips, fancying that he could feel the scar through the thick hide. “Could it be… was it because of The Iron Bull?” he asked, and though he didn’t exactly expect Cole to _know_ , he was the only one present to address the question to. “Were they… a better fit than we were?” he asked tentatively. “Only, he never said if the two of them…”

“Probably,” the boy opined, fingers lacing under his chin. “So different from the other world; one small choice gives and takes hundreds of lives from both sides - who owns the crown? Where on the map do we go first? One leaf on a tree touches another; one stranger passes another and now entire lives are different.”

“So you can... see some of this?” the Fereldan man asked, giving in to his curiosity.

“Only for now,” he reached out and pointed at Cullen’s hand, indicating where the ring sat on his left hand, his index finger twirling a circle in the air. “A single thread caught under the crack in the door, spanning both sides. The thread makes both sides part of the same whole.”

Giving into the urge he’d already been feeling under his skin, the itch, he unbuckled his left vambrace and removed the glove, seeing the ring sitting so innocently upon his finger. All day, it had been wearing a new depression into the inside of his glove, and he rubbed his thumb over the leather and sighed.

It wasn’t really practical, he realized. He should do as Dorian had done; thread the ring on the tough, expertly-forged chain the birthright sat upon, and let it rest protected under his armor. What if it were damaged in combat? He’d never forgive himself. Still, seeing it there on his finger was such reassurance, he didn’t particularly want to remove it. Cole watched him, and then looked at the ring. Hesitantly, one long, white finger came out, and brushed lightly over the stone settings, too faintly for Cullen to even feel it.

“I should protect it,” he told himself firmly, brows furrowing as he reached for the ring with his other hand. Because having it makes it real; makes him - them - real _._ “I wouldn’t want anything to -” as he spoke, he slid the ring from his hand, heart heavy.

That was when his finger went cold. Gasping, Cullen nearly dropped the ring, fingers fumbling in his surprise. “ _Maker_ ,” he swore, clutching it in his clumsy grasp. Unable to feel the metal bauble in his gloved hand, he could only gasp in a breath again when he saw the gems winking darkly in the faint light against the palm of his leather gauntlet. “I thought - I swore, when he went through the rift…”

Reliving that moment, the Commander knew he had not been mistaken. The ring had gone cold the moment Dorian had been taken, and he had curled his fingers unconsciously against the lack. It was that sensation that had left him reeling with loss, lying on the grass. It was only now that he had removed it completely that he realized that the sensation of Dorian’s proximity had not disappeared entirely; only diminished greatly, to the point that it seemed to have disappeared in comparison.

Goosebumps had crawled up the back of his arm, and he realized suddenly that if he felt the absence, Dorian might - “Blessed Andraste,” he muttered, and shoved the ring back onto his finger, praying he hadn’t snapped the tenuous connection of enchantment between the two small matched runes, worlds apart.

Surely the former _altus_ had felt that sensation before - the sudden cold seeping through his hand from a connection that should be warm, if distant. He could only imagine him blinking back a memory of horror at the feel of the day his husband had died, and prayed he had not reduced him to such a state upon the ring’s removal. Grudgingly, the enchantment seemed to resume its intended course, the barest tingle of warmth seeping back into his hand, like tea left too long off the fire.

Cole was staring at him, and he seemed rather unperturbed by it.

“He can feel me?” he asked, the words fitting poorly in his mouth, almost a gasp.

“Of course,” the boy named Compassion replied, serenely. “You can feel him too.”

“It was real,” he murmured, and looked up. “When the rift closes, Cole, will I -?”

When he raised his head, the spirit boy was gone, vanished through locked doors as inexplicably as he arrived. He looked back down to his hand, still cold as the only uncovered part of him, and brought the ring up to his lips gently. “Dorian,” he whispered, and left it against his lips for a long moment, eyes falling shut.

Alone with his thoughts for an extended period of time, he found himself slowly removing the other vambrace and leather gauntlet, all of it left in a pile on his desk. It was late, and he could reasonably head to bed now, given his accustomed early start to his day. Tomorrow… running drills, he vaguely promised himself. He would force himself to eat breakfast. He would stay busy. He would pray not to come down with another headache.

Admittedly, he had been out of sync with himself somewhat these past two weeks. It seemed that the rumor had spread about himself and their… guest… rather quickly. Surprisingly, other than a few uncomfortable looks here and there, most of his scouts and recruits had been circumspect about how their routine had suffered, and his lieutenants had picked up quite a bit of slack unflinchingly on his behalf.

Dorian’s voice - his lover’s voice, he realized, right on the heels of the sensation of discomfort in thinking of him by name. Soon that name would belong only to one person, as others forgot him. His lover’s voice floated on his memory, teasing him about his poor delegation skills, and he had to admit the truth - they probably didn’t need as much henpecking as he gave them, nowadays. Even the newest of those who had signed up at Haven were well-blooded by now; scoured by Adamant’s sands and steeped in the mud of the Arbor Wilds, leading expeditions of their own in some cases, or departing to form their own independent companies.

_My lover_. That’s what they had been, at least for those two short weeks. Another first - he could not veritably say he had had a _lover_ before, emotionally or sexually. It was only so clear once he knew they would never see one another again - an intangible thread of connection between the crack in the worlds, as Cole had put it; memories of a face that would soon be blurred over with the platonic imprint of another, similar man.

_Bed_ , he admonished himself. He would read one of the books his lover had left behind and try not to think too much. Loosening the folds of his fur-trimmed mantle, he reached for the buckles of his pauldrons. Suddenly, however, he was interrupted by a firm knock on the door to the northern ramparts. Pausing, he surveyed himself habitually. Finding himself not indecent, he went to the door with a tired sigh, and raised the bar, opening the door just a hand’s breadth.

Truthfully, he shouldn’t have been surprised to see Dorian waiting for him there; shouldn’t have been so jarred and _guilty_ when his heart jumped out of rhythm and sped up in his chest. He sucked in a quiet breath, taking in the freshly-washed and impeccably groomed _altus_ , whom he now realized stood with his arms curled like that only when he was feeling insecure. Dorian tipped his unmarked, smooth-shaven chin up boldly, eyes meeting his own implacably.

He looked _younger,_ he realized, and almost wanted to laugh at that, but he knew it would only send a strange message. So he put the strange nervous tic aside and licked his lips cautiously. “Can I help you?” He couldn’t bring himself to say the other man’s name.

“Yes,” Dorian replied, pausing meaningfully and glancing at his still mostly-closed door. “May I come in?” He asked pointedly, eyes flashing with some unrecognized emotion.

“I’m not sure now is a good time,” he demurred with staunch politeness.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he replied, though very little actual empathy leaked into his voice. “...because I really think we should talk.”

Eyes flickering past the _altus_ , he found that the infantry recruit on duty between his tower and the next was studiously avoiding looking in their direction. At this point, the Skyhold rumor mill was already certain to be well-supplied, no matter what he did. Eyebrows knit in frustration, he hissed out a silent breath and backed away from the gap in the door, swinging it wide enough to admit the mage into his office before shutting it. Apparently it didn’t matter if he wanted some time to sort out his feelings - Dorian Pavus would have his way.

Sauntering in as he was wont to do, the Tevinter man took over all the energy of the room, as expected. Cullen found his gaze lingering on Dorian’s hips before he caught it and jerked himself away fiercely. It was simply that he owned the space, much as his counterpart tended to do; all the more easily, in fact, for his lack of infirmity. Eyes lingering on his straight shoulders with a stab of maudlin regret, Cullen closed his eyes to steel himself against the sensation.

As such, he missed the moment in which Dorian decided he didn’t want to be locked in a dark room with the Commander of the Inquisition, and snapped his fingers. All the candles burst into life around the echoing stone room, flickering into brightness outside of his eyelids. Groaning softly, but feeling still somewhat grateful for having missed the gesture outside of the shiver the mana draw left on his skin, he dug his fingertips into his eyes to assuage the burn of exhaustion.

“I’m sorry, I was actually on my way to turn in,” he explained as he opened his eyes, catching Dorian eyeing his abandoned vambraces before parking himself against the edge of the desk, ankles and arms crossed. “As you can imagine, it’s been a rather long…” he gestured vaguely.

“Yes, I imagine so,” he drawled, nodding faintly. “I’ve heard some of the details, of course,” he began. Completely guarded in expression and voice, he faced the eastern door. Cullen glanced at it and remembered kissing the other Dorian there, and kept his face averted until he could get the strange sickly feeling in his chest back under control. “For instance, I met your sister - well, not _your_ sister, you understand, but for the sake of convenience…”

“Of course.” Answering the tiny gesture of ringed fingers with a faint wave of his own, Cullen drifted toward the middle of the room, crossing his arms in a stiffer echo of the mage’s own body language. “I’m accustomed to it, the… imprecision of communicating about such a thing, by now. Just say what you want to say; we’ll figure it out,” he bit back impatiently. “You met Mia? Was she well?”

“Well enough,” Dorian dipped his head in civility. “Well enough to slap me across the face the moment she laid eyes on me,” he added, with a chide in his voice that could hardly be for Cullen, despite the fact that he was the only one present. “You Rutherfords,” he _tsked_.

“I’m sure you’re bright enough to understand where she was coming from,” he grumbled. “You said she helped you? She brought his letters?”

“Indeed,” he said. Although they were conversing about relevant matters, it still felt like small talk - skirting the issue. He dropped his hands and curled his fingers around the edge of the desk, not unlike Cullen’s own stance the other day. Flushing, he turned away to pace, just to give himself the relief of not meeting his eyes for a few moments. “He was fond of her. I gather she was kind to him.”

“I read a letter he carried with him,” Cullen replied, facing toward the south door, stiffly, although he bent his aching knee uneasily. “She was very kind to him. Mia didn’t want to lose any more of her family.” He tapped the toe of his bent knee against the floor. “Is that all?”

“So the rumors are true,” Dorian mused aloud, surveying him. “Not that I would disbelieve the intelligence-gathering of The Iron Bull, of course. But to see you so short with me, like we were back to square one in our friendship.”

_I told you I didn’t want to talk right now._ “It’s not your fault,” Cullen allowed, after taking in, and expelling, a heavy breath. “You’re merely being inconsiderate at this point; not unreasonable,” he observed wryly.

“I beg your pardon?” Normally those words from Dorian were edged and barbed. This time, there was something between incredulity and surprise there.

Cullen turned and looked at him, and oh, it did ache to see him. “I’m sorry, Dorian,” he said, flinching slightly when he said the man’s name. “I’m sorry if you find it…” he fumbled for words, his intake of breath shivering into his lungs. “Demeaning, or… or, Maker’s breath - an invasion of your privacy, even. You could be understood for feeling that way,” he admitted. “It will be hard for me to discuss for some time, even with you. I just… I need time.”

He didn’t know how much of his own hurts were broadcast through his defensiveness. Dorian watched him with clever eyes - deadly accurate, actually, in terms of reading body language and social situations. “I need a little more than that right now, Cullen,” he said, and his voice was grittier, grainier than his normal speech, like he spoke through a clenched jaw. It made him sound like himself - his other self. Squeezing his eyes shut, Cullen threaded his fingers together behind his neck, turning to pace in a circle again.

The _altus_ watched him for a while. “At first,” he began, “they knew right away that something was amiss. They thought it was Time magic, perhaps - that I was younger, maybe. They asked questions, and I… I didn’t recognize the Inquisitor.”

“A woman?” Cullen asked, drawn out in curiosity despite himself. “Evie… Evelyn?”

“Trevelyan, yes. She looked, well, _spooked_ when it started to sink in that I wasn't him,” he explained. “I came to find out things were very different over there. I asked, and they told me that Bull was ...long dead,” he swallowed hard, his hand reaching up and touching the base of his neck uncertainly, as he tried to get himself under control, the palm flattening over the base of his throat as he regulated his breathing. "Maker, that felt…" his voice was brittle.

Despite himself, Cullen stepped closer to him, and reached out one bare hand. He rested his right fingertips just beside Dorian’s, on the outside, pushing just gently into his skin as though to weigh him down; like pushing a leaf under the current of a stream. Their eyes connected with mutual surprise, and he took his hand away again, turning as abruptly as he had reached out to pace away.

When he spoke again, however, Dorian sounded stronger. “Their Commander unlocked his room so that I would have somewhere to sleep,” he explained. “It was full of your things - your armor, your books, your trunk - it even smelled like you,” he admitted, his voice low and taut as a drumhead. “No one wanted to answer my questions. It was finally Commander Hawke who told me, out of pity - and he hadn’t even been there, mind you…” he paused. “He told me that you - or rather, that _their Cullen_ had widowed _their Dorian_ six months ago… they were all surprised that it hadn’t gone the same way in this world. I told her I was with Bull, and Sera made fun of me, called me a 'posh nob' and a ‘size queen’ just like _our_ Sera, only she looked like she wanted to cry the whole time.”

Listening to his words was like biting into a soft cake to find razor blades hidden beneath. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he offered, imagining the doubts - fears - that must have assailed him in that world. The Commander managed to face the mage when he said it, but he couldn’t quite look him in the eye. “You shouldn’t have had to. I know it means nothing to you, but I can tell you he was very regretful. That he… never wavered in wanting to set it right. Said he wouldn’t wish that world on you.”

“It was ...intolerable,” he admitted, with a plaintive note in his voice of distress half-smothered, something small and muted. Cullen flinched at the thought of his lover going into an _intolerable_ world, and then he wondered for a short time if this Dorian could even share these feelings with Bull. Or if he already had. “The way people looked at me, with this sort of… dismay, like the- the family mabari had suddenly gone out and dragged home a dead swan.” The sarcastic ire in his voice drew a snort from the Commander. “I suppose he was… very different?”

Hesitating, Cullen came over and finally leaned against the desk, as far apart as they could currently get. “Yes and no,” he said, his left hand rising to grasp the ruined birthright. “Experiences change who we are,” he opined, “even without such… _bizarre_ circumstances. I think I can say I’ve become a completely different person at least twice in my life. If my… acquaintances in Skyhold met the man I was five or ten years ago…” the Fereldan man shrugged. “So he was like you, but if you had lived a different life in your recent history.”

“You… liked him,” Dorian sounded faintly astonished.

“Are we speaking plainly, or are you wanting comfortable euphemisms?” he asked at last, rather more bluntly than he’d intended, and winced as the _altus_ turned his head to survey him with one, underwhelmed-looking eyebrow raised.

“Well, if our chess games are to go on permanent hiatus, I’d rather be given the consideration of a full explanation,” the mage uttered dryly, arms crossed tightly again.

“I -” Cullen covered his mouth with his far hand, muttered _fuck_ into it quietly because his most recent and only lover had been a terrible influence, and then dropped it down to clutch at the amulet again. “Dorian, I don’t know how else to say this. I _like_ you,” he explained, keeping his tone as respectful as he could. “But he _loves - loved_ me.” Reining in his flinch once more, he finally dared to look over at the other man, his lungs tight and frozen in his chest as he waited for something, some kind of reaction. “Do you… do you understand?”

Dorian’s eyes peered into his own gaze, blinking as they flickered faintly away against his will, and back again. At last, they drifted down, and landed on the hand wrapped around the birthright necklace. Cullen felt the sharpness of that look, and felt the breath that stabbed into his lungs even as his hand tightened unconsciously around it.

“Did you sleep with him?” he asked - blurted, really. Ordinarily, the Commander would be taken aback, maybe even offended by the inquiry. In this case, however, he merely flushed bright red and looked away. “ _Maker’s arse_ ,” Dorian pushed himself away from the desk, and away from him. “So that part’s true too? I’d really convinced myself that you of all people couldn’t possibly -”

It was his turn to pace, apparently. Closing his eyes, the Fereldan man concentrated on his breathing, on bringing his expression and his blush under control. Apparently, within a few rounds, Dorian decided that he had feelings to vent, because his steps slowed as he rounded to face him again. “I do hope you had a lovely time _fucking me_ while I was out,” he hissed, and with his sense of humor, it could be a joke perhaps, but didn’t come across as something that was at all humorous.

Clenching his jaw, he ground his back molars together. “It wasn’t - it’s not _indecent_ like you make it sound,” he protested, and though there was heat, there was little strength in his voice. “I’ll admit that it was complicated, and… and that there was some awkwardness at first,” he hedged. “Truthfully, I’ll even admit that it wasn’t really _appropriate_ , in terms of our friendship. I - I truly am _sorry,_ Dorian. But I -” something overwhelming and sad bloomed through his chest, cutting his lungs and stealing his breath.

He tried not to let it onto his face, but something of it must have leaked through. With a gentleness he didn’t expect, the man pulled his own latticed fingertips up to his lips, looking startled, and asked softly, “ _What_ , Cullen?”

“I m-” standing abruptly, he turned his back on the mage, looking out the small window behind his desk. It was the voice; this Dorian didn’t speak to him so tenderly, as he would to a spooked mount or a small child. Hearing that tone now nearly undid him, and he found a swelling burn in his throat cutting off his voice as his vision swam in the candlelit room. For once, he didn’t push, and after he finally fought down the grip that was closing his throat - after he safely pulled two, three relatively painless breaths - he whispered, “I _miss_ him. It’s been a blighted _day_ and already...”

“I…” Dorian was silent for so long that the Commander could only guess what he was thinking. There was no real sound; a small shift of fabric, before he breathed, “ _Vishante kaffas._ ”

_Honesty, right?_ He wanted plain speech, and it needed to come out of him - now, while it was raw. While it was impossible to hold it back, and before he could be accused of living a lie.

“I miss - the way he smelled,” he admitted, every word painful now, constricting his chest gradually. “How warm he was when he leaned against me, and the way he fussed at me to eat - you’re both _fussers_ ,” he smiled faintly to himself. “I’ll miss how he distracted me when I was feeling ill, telling me embarrassing stories about himself and Felix.”

A sharp shudder of breath was exhaled behind him.

“The way he said my name,” Cullen added, closing his eyes. “ _No one_ has ever said my name like that. I’ll miss - helping him out of the bath, because it hurt his leg, and… and I _loved_ …” there was that word again. “The way the sun looked on his skin; on his bare back, at dawn.”

Dorian was moving again - pacing, perhaps, and a long breath went into him, though he didn’t hear it come out, nor did any other voluntary sound. His own voice had gone so husky he had to stop, to clear his throat. When he looked back at last, Dorian was facing away from him, one elbow in his opposite hand, the other covering his mouth as he stared up toward the ceiling. Every line of his body was on edge, and Cullen hated that it had so quickly become so charged - _estranged_ \- between them.

“It’s not your fault, Dorian,” he repeated, turning toward him after he thought he’d steadied himself, falling back with his hip catching his weight against the desk. “I’m paying for my... my misconduct. I did this to _myself_ , because I…” he swallowed, forcing the truth out when it wanted to curdle quietly in his belly. “I guess I wanted… felt _drawn_ to know just what it was like to be loved by him. My fault, because I didn’t know what I was getting into, and I’ve never before been in -” he looked at his hands, his right hand coming up to rotate the band on his left.

He thought Dorian would have something to add, but he was still silent.

“Just… give me some time,” he pushed ahead, trying to dampen the plea in his voice. “It’s something that… is going to take far longer to recover from than it did to fall into,” he huffed weakly; an aborted laugh. “Until then, being near you won’t be easy. Rest assured, however, I-I won’t _conflate_ the two of you. You’re - regardless how I feel about _him_ , you are still my friend.”

Striking him like lightning was the realization that he hadn’t really understood when the other Dorian had said the same thing to him, regarding his husband. They weren’t the same person, and anyone who knew either of them would find that plain. It settled some uncertainty in him, heavy and forlorn as a stepping stone sunk steadily into the mud. Sniffing a sharp but dry breath through his nose, he cleared his throat again, feeling more at a loss than he could have imagined. “You have my word on that, for what it is worth. Try… could you try not to be angry with me, please?”

Across the room, he watched as the mage’s hand fell, and then his head dropped forward, and then he nodded silently, heavily. After another moment, he turned at last. This was the Tevinter noble he was looking at now - the man who knew how to hide his feelings, his pain if it was there, from Cullen and everyone else - and he didn’t _like_ knowing this about him, for a moment, as useful as it perhaps was. Another unintended side effect, it seemed.

“Commander,” he retreated back to his safe vantage, then sighed. “ _Cullen_. To know that, if events had been different, you and I might…” he gestured between them vaguely.

Nodding, Cullen did not trust himself to speak. Then he shook his head faintly, a sliver of a smile hoping to serve to absolve them both. The mage closed his eyes for several seconds as he breathed through the tension, then opened them to look at him with renewed purpose.

Crossing the room at last, Dorian reached out his hand. “Let me see the ring.”

“No,” he replied reflexively, curling both hands around it as he leaned away.

His face gentled again slightly. “I read his journals, Cullen,” he coaxed. “I promise, I’m not - I’m not _angry_. I just want to show you something.”

Sizing up his manner for a long moment, Cullen mumbled, “He can feel it when I take it off, I think,” but reluctantly slipped it from his finger. The rise of the mage’s eyebrows showed that he was impressed that it could still happen given the circumstances.

“Look here,” he said, snapping a new magelight into existence above them both. In the crisp light, he bent his head forward, the pinpricks of candlelight catching in his hair, lining the curve of his face. _Still beautiful_ , he realized; however, he didn’t have the same urge to go to him that he did with his counterpart. Perhaps it was the wariness in his face when he raised his chin, or the unspoken barrier between them, but he looked away instead, down at the ring held out toward him, angled oddly away.

For the first time, he could see inside the band, and he frowned, bending his head forward with brows knit in concentration. “What’s… I didn’t notice this,” he admitted, feeling chagrined. Words were etched with thin precision into the metal - undoubtedly Dwarven work. “ _Sum… tuus…_ ”

Wincing at his accent, Dorian extended his smallest fingernail to follow along as he spoke the miniscule words properly. “ _Sum tuus, ergo sum totius_.” He cleared his throat as Cullen raised his eyes expectantly, brows rising to ask the question for him. “I understand that this inscription was intended for his husband, but if he left this for you, then one is not out of line to assume…” he shrugged stiffly. “Well, they had to fit it in a very small space, but essentially it means... _‘I am yours, therefore I am whole,’_ ” he explained, carefully avoiding his gaze. “Not phrased quite as the ancient poets would have put it, but…” he shrugged again.

“They only had each other,” Cullen found himself saying. “After… they watched the birthright get smashed together, I suppose… one would have some feelings about that.” Dorian’s face seemed stricken all over again, a sharp vulnerability. “Because of their marriage,” he explained when he saw the question about to resurface again, and raised his eyebrows, pensively looking up into the too-familiar silver eyes. “He didn’t write of it? In his journals?”

“Too painful, I suspect,” he muttered, though it seemed to take a moment to find his voice. “Also, they only went back so far, for whatever reason,” his shoulders tightened, and his gaze stayed firmly detached. “Here; the ring is keyed to you. Take your finger, and go like this,” he held the ring steady with one hand, and slipped the pad of his smallest finger inside, sweeping it across the inscription. “If the connection truly still functions, then he should feel it if you do. It’s part of the enchantment.”

He complied without hesitation, and Dorian urged him to slip the ring back on. “He can do the same back? How will I know?” He asked, raising his face and finding a small smile inside for the _altus’_ benefit.

Despite the fact that he was hardly feeling more enthusiastic about it than the Commander himself, the expression he wore for just a moment was downright indulgent. A hint of warmth flared there, and Cullen found himself blinking down at the ring again to avoid his gaze. “I suspect you will know,” he mused. “...What? It isn’t _my_ ring, after all.” He turned and headed away from the Fereldan man, a comical sniff unleashed on the air. “Maker forfend - a Dorian Pavus ensnared in the institution of marriage? Perish the thought,” he quipped lightly.

_Rutherford_ , his mind corrected silently. “Dorian, thank you,” he called as the man saw himself to the north door. The mage paused and looked back at him. “I mean it. For this, and… for any future forbearance you see fit to grant me.”

“I knew you’d fall for my dashing good looks eventually,” he chuckled, though it was a touch breathless - a cover for something else. “But Maker, three years late? _Really_ , Cullen. There’s _fashionably_ late, and then there’s just _late_.”

He chuckled despite the fact that his eyes rolled. His reflexive smile back felt weak, but it emerged regardless. “You’ll tell me more about the other Skyhold, sometime?”

“Another time,” he promised vaguely. “Shall I leave the lights on?” Other than the magelight, which had already faded. Cullen shook his head, and watched the door swing closed behind him, the candles snuffing out into the darkness. He perched on the edge of the desk again, gently, and sighed, then found his way back to his chair, sitting down heavily.

A few moments later, he felt a strange sensation on his hand - very faintly, the ring sort of pulsed against his skin, like a second heartbeat. A smile broke across his features before he could contain it, though it was a sensation tinged with longing and a bit of regret. _I’m thinking of you, too_. “ _Sum tuus, ergo sum totius_ ,” he mumbled, echoing Dorian’s refined accent, badly.

It seemed, at last, that his interruptions for the evening may have ceased, and so he carted his armor upstairs and undressed. The tunic his lover had worn still smelled like him, and so did the bed. For now, he swore to soak it in, and burrowed himself deep into the covers in the chill Guardian night. Protected by the magic soaked into the foundations of Skyhold, it felt only like the first frosts of Harvestmere, and his heat soaked into the blankets until he could almost imagine Dorian was nearby, or had simply risen but a moment, soon to return.

When he got back, his mind supplied, he would burrow a hand up beneath him to pull him in, and would kiss his neck, breathing hot on his nape until he settled down for the night. The transition between this peaceful thought and the Fade was not as jarring as he might ordinarily have expected it to be. His dreams were not as terrifying as they had been on some nights, and when he woke in the small hours of the morning, his body unaccustomed to long rest still, he sat up almost before he was aware.

_Unsettling_ , perhaps - his dreams had not been terrifying flashes of blood incantations or magical prisons, but sensations of loss and personal failure. Clutching the blanket to his chest, he looked around the small, cold room, and realized quite suddenly that, despite what he had feared beforehand, the nauseating nightmares had been unexpectedly absent, for the length of time in which he had shared a bed.

_Maybe I should get a dog as well,_ he snorted a laugh, to offset the miserable sensation of tight, aching loss that washed into his chest at the sight of his empty bed; his solitary life. Of course, getting a mabari up and down a vertical ladder would be an interesting exercise, but if he could carry a ten-stone mage up a ladder, a seven-stone full-grown mabari shouldn’t be too much struggle, most days. And it was true, what he’d told Dorian, about a dog so intelligent typically being inclined to look after its human. Perhaps as Inquisition Commander, it was a string he could pull.

Setting aside the thought for the time being, he turned, and pulled his fresh trousers from the habitual pile he’d set aside so that he could slip right through them and straight into his boots as he stood. Situating himself, he folded the tunic and tucked it into Dorian’s pillow, pressing it beneath the weight of his spare, rightfully swiped from him when the mage took up his bed, a tiny hint of smile quirking his scar. He hoped it would still bear his scent later. The smile faded.

He lit a candle with care from his flint, and placed it in front of the tiny placard of Andraste he used when he didn’t feel like trekking across the keep. The Commander said a prayer; begged her to watch over Dorian even though he followed the Imperial Chantry, and had his own world to look after him besides. Asked her to watch over his own foolish and miserable heart, and guide his hands to worthy tasks.

Lifting the candle and shielding it from a careful sigh, he went over to his wash basin and shivered through freezing ablutions of his face and hands, shivering at the damp water catching into his nightshirt. He set it aside and dressed quickly - undershirt, padding, a quick touch of a fingertip inside the ring, gloves, armor, and his fur-trimmed mantle, and then he was sliding down the ladder, walking out toward the kitchens even though it was far too early for breakfast.

He ate, and he lit the candles in his office, and scribbled through as many reports as he could get through while the sun rose, and then he showed up in the upper courtyard when the scout summoned him, with the ruined birthright pendant clutched in his hand. Dorian Pavus was there, looking particularly well-put-together, and surprisingly inscrutable. The Iron Bull accompanied his lover; the _Tal-Vashoth_ looked him over carefully, and then offered an almost perfunctory smile at whatever he saw, though he was content to keep to the sidelines.

Dagna and Junou were present, of course, and presently, Alexius was escorted to the group as well. Dorian eyed him with care, though the ex-Magister only glanced him over with the same exactitude, seeming to settle a little more easily upon noting that Dorian was back to, essentially, the man he expected his former apprentice to be. Cullen didn’t miss the grizzled-looking Tevinter man’s eyes flickering over to his own face, but he felt no need to acknowledge him beyond a polite nod.

Cradling the chain of the amulet, Cullen presented it to the dark-skinned young _altus_ without being asked. Dorian accepted it without comment, taking time to study it in the rising daylight, eyes closing as he channeled his mana into the thing. The energy being funneled into the amulet made it grow brighter, fuller, and it slowly began to levitate from the palm of his hand.

The rest of the group was fairly quiet, one or two muffling yawns, or staring up at the rift with growing concern. Dorian’s hand closed around the carven staff Bull thrust into his palm, and the ramping power of the mana became more stable - Cullen could tell from the way the mana pull drew shivers across the skin of his shoulders. Shuffling closer to observe, Alexius nodded respectfully to Adaar and then held up both hands to _watch_ Dorian’s spellcasting through his own thaumaturgical senses. After a while, and a good bit of curiosity, the _Vashoth_ joined him.

“Wow,” she said after a while, pulling away from the spell. Dorian had broken into a light sheen of sweat, but took the signal of the Inquisitor’s withdrawal to ramp down his own magical output. Alexius remained in place to watch him extract himself from the casting. “When I look at it in that way, it almost seems like a - a waterfall,” she said, her long fingers flickering in an arc up toward the rift. “If the Breach, and the smaller rifts, were like doorways, then this rift is like a river,” she turned toward the two Tevinter men eagerly.

Alexius was already considering the analogy, one folded hand scrubbing at his moderately-unkempt chin. “A waterfall is part of a river, but using it as a means of transportation is a one-way trip. Are you saying you think the rift is one-way only?”

“No,” she shook her horns in the early-morning sunlight, lips pursed in thought. “A normal rift is like a straight river; you could get on a boat and sail down or row upstream. With this, you can do some things, but only as long as they do not require you to go upstream. In other words, you can’t just pass through it freely - the door will be closed if the requirements are lacking.”

“It’s an imperfect analogy,” Dorian replied, a bit sourly. When Cullen closed his eyes, it could be his lover, almost - but it was more like the same musical instrument being played by a different performer. “It’s not like when I was trying to initiate a transfer from the other Skyhold. I was trying to get back here specifically, and some as-yet-unknown form of inertia was encouraging that momentum, but I couldn’t break through because the conditions weren’t met. I could grasp it, but not harness it, like…” both hands grasped openly at the air for a metaphor.

“...Trying to catch a wet, soapy dog during bath time?” Cullen volunteered.

“Thank you for the delightfully Fereldan analogy. Commander. Yes, why not,” Dorian allowed, glancing in his direction without really making eye contact. “But to close it…” he shook his head, in frustration. “I _might_ \- theoretically - be able to collapse _our_ rift, at best. I can’t even guarantee that much without research,” he added, apologetically. “Doing so would not close the main rift, or guarantee a stable closure.”

“So,” Adaar went on, her voice heavy, and rotated her shoulders in irritation. “Did any of the other Dorian’s research indicate to you whether or not other… I don’t know, _versions_ of our world are affected by this rift?”

“You know that this isn’t the planned outcome,” Dorian swiped both hands to his left, pointing his fingers upward at the golden-green crystallization in the sky, emphatically. “It’s - it’s possible. You could even say, _likely_. There’s no way to quantify it for certain, but…”

Dagna spoke up. “I’ve talked with Ser Alexius and the Tranquil about this, yesterday,” she piped up, and stepped into the space that opened up for her in the circle. “Mathematically speaking, the odds are high that other worlds are affected - and are drawing demon incursions from the Fade - as well.” She shrugged demonstratively. “It’s only that our own world and…” her eyes darted around the circle to the younger man, cheeks flushing lightly. “Eh… our world and Ser Rutherford’s world were particularly connected, by circumstance.”

Cullen swallowed awkwardly, wondering if Bull had gotten to that part in his explanation to his lover where he informed him that Dorian had taken his name. Judging by the flinch on the _Tal-Vashoth’_ s face, and the piercing silver-gray stare that whipped around to impale the Commander, leaving him flushing uncomfortably but standing stiffly in place, it had apparently not been discussed. Probably, it had little cultural significance to Bull himself.

Looking down at the amulet in his hand, Dorian forced himself to take a deep breath, and to uncurl his clenching fingers from around it one at a time. “So,” he had to clear his throat to be heard clearly. “So, it stands to reason that taking _no_ action does have an affect on other worlds - though we may not be forced to bear direct witness to it. Am I understanding correctly?”

Arcanist and mages all exchanged looks as though daring someone to correct the assertion. When no dissention emerged, Cullen nodded once, sharply, as though to cement the theorem as part of their foundation. “Alright. So then the next priority would be to close the original rift. I understand that my own thaumaturgical knowledge is theoretical, at best, but… I believe I did hear the lot of you conclude that the problem could _not_ , in point of fact, be resolved from here.”

“Someone has to fix it from _his_ side,” Dorian snapped, crossing his arms. “It’s like trying to hit a lever you can _see,_ but is just out of reach, like those Elven cage puzzles in the Exalted Plains.” Cullen had read the reports; the switches were locked inside bars that had to be carefully raised or lowered with great coordination. That certainly explained the mage’s tone of consternation.

Crossing the generous distance between them, Cullen reached over and took the pendant from his hand - presumptuously, if not downright rude, though he did it without malice. “So, he needs this,” he held it in his hand, gazing down at it for a moment as his thumb rubbed absently over the rounded gemstones. He realized that one of them had cracked, though it was so properly set that the crack could not widen. Uncaring of how it made him appear, he looked down at the necklace in his hand. “How long would it take him to craft a new one of these? And would it work?”

Dorian’s eyes were on his hands, but Alexius looked at his former protege thoughtfully, and tried to answer. “The short answer is - we don’t know if any link is established between the specific amulet and the rift. It took us months to craft the amulet used in Redcliffe. That piece was created from scratch, for the very purpose it eventually fulfilled - more perfectly than we had realized it would, at the time of its inception.”

Brushing his moustache into place distractedly, Dorian thought it through, saying at first, “Skyhold lacked the necessary resources to recreate the same amulet, in both worlds. Here in our world, the original one was entrusted to the Inquisition. Over there, well, Lady Trevelyan did say that he could not have made up a reasonable enough excuse to convince her to aid him in this madness.”

After glancing across at Alexius, and then meeting Adaar’s eye, he went on, “So, he created a new one. Armed with the knowledge of the original research parameters, he was able to do two things. The first was to create it in such a short time frame - the entire plan was conceived and executed in its entirety in the six months from Cullen’s death.” He was so focused on his tangent that he didn’t realize how bluntly he came across. “Secondly, he was able to refine the construction of the amulet to the extent that he did not require the specialized materials we were forced to procure in Asariel - no, he simply embedded the entire spellwork into his bloody _birthright_ , which he was able to get away with only because it already functioned as a magical receptacle.”

Reaching over, he flipped the item in Cullen’s hand upside down, and they were all gazing at a series of invocation runes etched, sharply if somewhat crudely, into the metal. Cullen had not chanced to turn it over, and so had not seen the work. “Why here? He hated this thing.”

“That’s partly why,” Dorian murmured quietly, glancing over his shoulder when the shadow of Bull’s wide horns fell over the Commander’s open hand. “Hate isn’t the opposite of love, you know,” he murmured, with a little twist to his face that made Cullen’s heart want to go out to him. “Besides, to whom would he be asked to account? Defacing the already sullied symbol of a dead legacy…” he shook his head with a sigh.

“So he could make another amulet, you’re saying?” Cullen asked, feeling his cheeks heat up when all eyes turned to him. “It can be resolved from his end when he creates another? He doesn’t have to have _this_ one?”

Hesitantly, Dorian opened his mouth to answer, then threw an uncertain look to his former mentor. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “This is the first time two such devices have existed in the same world, insofar as we know.”

“But you said it’s useless from here?” the Fereldan man pressed, confused.

Bull seemed to get it though, one hand resting briefly on Dorian’s bare shoulder. The _altus_ jumped slightly at the firm clasp. “You don’t mean these - you’re talkin’ ‘bout the Redcliffe amulet in the other Skyhold.”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Dorian confirmed.

Adaar was frowning, and Cullen felt something tugging at his memory as well. The two met gazes across the circle. “But… Inquisitor Trevelyan probably doesn’t even _have_ that amulet,” Junou began slowly. “Unless… Dorian, did you actually _see_ it with your own eyes? Or did she confirm it verbally, at least? You just said she wouldn’t _help_.”

“Honestly, it didn’t come up,” he admitted doubtfully. “We were more focused on the immediate need - I wanted to come home,” he added, his voice soft but stiff. Bull ducked his head down and buried his face in the _altus’_ hair. For his part, Dorian blinked and stood unwaveringly as though he were not, in fact, being manhandled in public before all his peers.

“Evie - Lady Trevelyan,” Cullen corrected himself, “... allied with the Templar Order. She arrived at Redcliffe too late to preserve the Fereldan mages,” he added. “I spoke about it in passing with Dorian - I remember it because he told me that the Inquisition mages numbered hardly over two dozen by the battle in the Arbor Wilds, and that’s including the ones who made their way - _miraculously_ \- to Skyhold through the fighting in the Hinterlands.” The rest of the group seemed startled, except for the elder Tevinter man. “Because of that, Inquisition forces failed to intervene in Venatori actions in Redcliffe, and they turned on Magister Alexius - fatally.” He tried not to glance apologetically at the stoic-faced ex-Magister.

Dorian hissed in a breath. “ _Venhedis_. So then, the last known location of that damn amulet was probably still in Venatori hands - though the blighters would hardly have dared to try it.” He closed his eyes, sighing so deeply he actually seemed to sway in place.

“Cole could possibly find it,” Adaar interjected suddenly. “Only, they would need to know to ask for it.” Glancing around her circle, she flicked her eyes toward Dorian again. “Cole did join their Inquisition, did he not?”

Somewhat uncertainly, the fine-boned mage nodded, fingers on his rings, twirling in place as he shifted his hips. “He did, but… he wasn’t like _our_ Cole. He was more like Compassion.”

Cullen remembered the boy peeking up at him from the end of the desk last night, and cleared his throat with a quick cough. “Cole,” he raised his voice. “If you can hear us, will you show yourself?”

“I can hear you,” the boy slipped into the circle, though the whole thing fell a bit flat, given that he had clearly just walked over from the tavern, in a completely ordinary manner of locomotion. “I cannot hide now, as I used to,” he reminded them. Cullen still found him more than a little stealthy.

“But your counterpart can,” the Commander pointed out. “You told me there was a connection between our worlds, even now. Is that still true?” he asked, chewing the inside of his cheek.

Cole looked over his anxiety with a well-practiced eye, but stilled before giving him the answer. “Yes, Cullen. For you, the crack in the door is still open. You have possession of the key; you can slip through the world’s margins, small as the mice in the kitchen grain.”

Bull sighed deeply and muttered, “I’ll tell Ser Morris about the mice.”

A fair amount of confusion circled the group aside from this tidbit, most of them side-eyeing the Commander uneasily. Junou Adaar stared unflinchingly in his direction, however. Alexius’ eyebrows rose. “I am not familiar with this boy,” he gestured to Cole. “Is he referring to the other world’s amulet?”

“Cole,” Cullen drew his lower lip into his mouth carefully, and bit it experimentally. He wanted to ask a question, but if he was hasty, it would complicate the conversation astronomically. “If you are correct, and there is a - a _thread_ , I think you called it, through the crack in the door… does that mean we could get a message through?” He raised both eyebrows to the boy hopefully. “Perhaps you could tell Dorian - or, or even your counterpart - about the amulet?”

“He brought Cassandra her brother’s picture-locket,” Bull supplied with sudden vigor.

“Yes,” Cullen acknowledged, “We’ve all seen you retrieve things for your friends,” he went on, and explained, “Your other version is still a pure Compassion spirit. If he could tell Dorian where to find the amulet, or better yet, retrieve it for him, then they could seal the rift.”

“Shutting the door would sever the thread,” Cole replied, in all seriousness, looking him in the eyes. “I don’t think you want to do that.”

“It’s not about me,” Cullen denied quickly, embarrassed to have the topic broached so directly in front of his friends, no matter how accurate. “Having this open rift will affect everyone. It will summon demons to many worlds. People could be hurt.”

“...No, this is wrong,” Cole insisted slowly, shaking his head, his normally quiescent features tightening in distress. “You… Dorian wants you to be more selfish,” he argued. “You’ve already forgotten how to _be_ without him near. What will you do?” the boy demanded, his last words full of a foreign depth of emotion.

Cullen’s eyes found those of the other - of _their_ \- Dorian, but the man wouldn’t meet his eyes, stepping backward into Bull’s hands on his shoulders, as though shaken. Red-faced, the Commander took a deep breath, and steeled himself. “ _Cole,_ ” he chastised. “One person can’t possibly outweigh the well-being of dozens - hundreds - of innocents. Have we not yet taught you even _that_?” he demanded, faintly appalled.

“You’re doing this wrong.” Flustered, the boy gathered both hands into fists. “He told you to ask yourself the question, Cullen. _Why not today?_ If you won’t pay attention to yourself, then at least listen to Dorian,” he insisted, and launched into a perfect replica of the _altus_ dialect. _“‘Volo esse tuus, Mea Bellator - volo manere tecum_.’ Were you not listening?”

“Sweet fucking Maker,” Dorian whispered behind his own palm, turning away with a flush so bright it glowed even through his darker skin tone. Alexius raised both eyebrows in mild astonishment, but then immediately lowered them, doing his best to scour the flicker of amusement from his eye.

“I - I don’t know what that means,” Cullen admitted, fingers clenching around the birthright in his hand. “Cole, please, _stop_ ,” he admonished again, his voice going fainter, as it was now far too late to allow him to save face in front of his peers. “We knew from the beginning that our time was limited,” he muttered quietly to the spirit boy, as though somehow that would convince the rest of their witnesses to give him some privacy. “Now it’s over, Cole. I know you care about people’s happiness, but this isn’t something you can fix.”

“I won’t help you,” he declared, his jaw suddenly firming up, all stubborn and square, and he crossed his arms, legs spread and elbows thrust forward combatively. Absurdly enough, he was the spitting image of Varric when he did, albeit lankier. “I’m not going to help you until you read the letter,” he declared, and then turned to stalk away, the perfect mimic of anger for about four steps. Then he stopped and turned back, and said with his typical affable sweetness, “But I _want_ to help you, Cullen, so just come ask me then!”

Baffled, the Commander made a vague sound of unregulated acknowledgement in his throat, sort of a loose, open-mouthed _Ah_ , watching the young man turn and resume his angry stalk back into the tavern. Feeling a vein in his forehead throb, Cullen began to anticipate a headache, and quite possibly, an early, stress-related death.

“A letter?” Dagna asked. “Dorian left lots of letters! Mine was practically a codex!” She giggled. “Did you get one too, Commander?”

Glancing around the circle, he saw Adaar and Alexius, even, nod to Dagna’s inquiring glance. “I… no,” he replied, swallowing to sound normal and not at all shaky. “Nothing.”

“He left them all with you, didn’t he, Bull?” Dorian asked, still _not looking_ at the Commander, but rather up at his ex-Qunari lover.

“I delivered everything he gave me,” the man shrugged apologetically.

“Even _I_ got one,” the _altus_ mumbled, as though he were unsure if that was a good thing or ill. After a moment of thought, he tilted his head. “Come with me,” he decided, stepping out of the _Tal-Vashoth_ ’s embrace. “Junou, Cullen will come see you later, and so will I, hm?” Barely waiting for the woman’s amused nod, he turned the Commander around with the press of one hand, pushing him a few steps forward. “Come.”

“Dorian,” he tripped over a rock and fumbled back to full footing. “I guess I should apologize to you again,” he began, but the man pushed his shoulder hard.

“If you really want to apologize, sort this all out,” he replied succinctly. “That way we can all get back to our lives, shall we?”

“R-right,” he muttered, reaching up both hands as he walked, shoving his hair back from his face and barely avoiding the urge to scrunch his fingers into it, hitting himself in the nose with the birthright before wearily fastening it around his neck again.

“Why do you cling to it so fiercely?” Dorian asked, warily. Chancing a look over at him, he found the mask firmly in place, although his voice was not his normal easy-going tenor.

“Why wouldn’t I?” he returned. “He didn’t mean to leave it behind, but he did trust me with it.” Dorian did turn a sharp look toward him then, his lips pressed thin beneath his moustache. “I can’t say if what you went through was exactly the same, but… he didn’t want to throw it away, even when it hurt. It deserves to be respected.”

Sharp creases appeared between the _altus’_ brows, even through his effort to appear placid. The subtle flicker of his eyelid was troubled. “Why, of all people, are _you_ the one to understand that?” he muttered. “Bull… respects it because he respects me, but he doesn’t - doesn’t _understand_ it like that. It’s abstract to him.”

“I’m certain it would be more innate to him if his upbringing were different,” he soothed gently. They had mounted the stairs to the battlements, but before he reached the top, Cullen was stricken suddenly with an overwhelming wave of weariness. “Andraste’s -” he pressed his fingers into the hollows around his eyes with a sharp ache, stumbling to a stop near the top steps. “Hold a moment.”

Turning, he perched himself near the top of the steps, sitting heavily with his armored elbows striking his thighs. Dorian, a few steps below, paused with one hand on the stone rail, and watched him with a neutral sort of concern. Self-consciously, he grunted once his eyes were able to open and see the frown aimed at him. “He’s only been gone a day, and I’m already backsliding.”

Disbelief washed over his expression. “He was making you… better?” He managed to twist his lips in a bitter small smile, and the _altus_ drew in a breath, looking somewhat guilty, of all things. “How?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, cordially but with as much detachment as he could manage. “If someone matters to you, you learn, do you not?” Coughing a little when a chill gust of wind stole his breath, he eased his fingertips up over his brow. “If Bull were ill, would you not do what you must? Particularly if it were something as simple as mere companionship?”

“That’s all there is to it?” He raised a doubtful brow, crossing his arms and cocking his hip to lean against the rail. “And just like that, no more lyrium withdrawals?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scolded. “Nursing or aiding a sick family member or loved one is not the same as curing them, for all that the help might be indispensable.” He closed his eyes heavily, rubbing his temple. “He and his husband were together at least as long as you and Bull, I think.”

Dorian seemed chagrined at his own snarkiness, but the Fereldan man could not find it in himself to lay blame. “Is that so,” he managed, in a more conciliatory tone at last.

“Mm,” he agreed. “I too was taken aback when he arrived. He could have lied to spare my feelings, but what would have been the point?” Cullen shrugged. “Plus he showed up wearing fur,” he tugged at the corner of his own mantle, smirking into the bright red darkness of the sun hitting his closed eyelids.

“ _Outrageous slander_ ,” Dorian shot back immediately, but he knew enough of the man’s many tones by now to recognize this as levity.

“Gone quite native, he had,” the Commander snorted. “And _everyone_ in Skyhold saw.”

“Best then that I’ll be returning to Tevinter soon,” he returned loftily, and Cullen opened his eyes. Dorian’s arms were still crossed, but he was staring off into the distance now, biting at his lower lip. His expression was like a veneer of calm laid over an etching of longing - though for what outcome, he couldn’t say for certain.

“Recent events aside,” Cullen rumbled, his voice crackling a little dryly, “...I shall miss my chess partner - though I am perhaps the least of those who will miss you.”

“Will it make things easier for you?” he asked, almost gently, noticing his narrow-eyed gaze. Cullen wished he weren’t feeling faintly dizzy for this conversation.

“I suspect not, in the long run,” the Commander replied, but he wasn’t sure it was the truth. Dorian’s eyes lingered uncertainly on him. The hesitation there was uncommon to him, but the Fereldan man had become more skilled in reading that particular face in the past few weeks. “What is it you want to ask?” He quirked an eyebrow knowingly as the Tevinter man started.

“Why…” he cleared his throat. “I don’t know how to ask,” he admitted, sounding almost sheepish. Cullen raised the hand not currently squeezing at his forehead, fingers curling in an _out with it_ gesture. “Maybe what I want to ask is, what was he like?”

Cullen sat up a little straighter, taking in his tempered curiosity for a moment before curling all his fingers behind his neck. He tried to press his fingertips into the base of his skull the way his lover had reflexively done. It wasn’t as good, but it did help, a little. “What you want to know is how he was different, right?”

“I… yes,” he licked his lips, and shifted uncomfortably. “It’s just -” he looked back over his shoulder at Skyhold. “Obviously Bull and Junou are glad I’m back, but… it seems like everyone else preferred him better,” he admitted. Cullen raised his eyebrows, surprised he would confide this, even to him. “Even Gereon, as a matter of fact.”

“But you can’t even tell Alexius you give a damn what he thinks,” the Commander pointed out, as gently as he could. Dorian considered his words, and then lifted one shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. “You have a right to feel however you feel about him, you know,” Cullen acknowledged, as gracefully as he could. “He missed you, but it was the other Dorian who reached out to him - who understood his feelings about Felix from a perspective you haven’t been privy to,” he explained. “It’s no one’s fault - that’s just the way it is, and he accepts it.”

Both brows up, and then down flat. “Fine. But… the question stands.”

Nodding, the Commander put his hands down again, considering it. Perhaps it was his openness - his friendliness? His _vulnerability_ \- a dirty word in the _altus_ lexicon. Those answers weren’t wrong, he realized, pursing his lips as he gazed over the grounds of Skyhold from their high vantage point. He remembered Dorian Rutherford - _his Dorian_ \- telling stories, writing Brielle’s mother a recipe for treating rheumatism, discussing Tevinter-specific magical theory with the bright sponge that was Dagna, dragging a rather lonely-looking Bull up to the battlements one day to sit over the edge and snack on fried chicken in some special northern spicy sauce.

“He…” Cullen bit his lower lip. “Hear me out.” Dorian stood straighter, uncrossing his arms. When he saw the seriousness with which the Fereldan man regarded him, he nodded once, firmly. “He was you, Dorian. He _is - was_. Anyone who tells you differently just doesn’t know him well enough. Up to a certain point, you were essentially the same.”

Confused, the gray-eyed man scowled, more at Cullen’s hands than anything.

“When it comes down to it, there was really only one difference between you. The rest was just…” he blinked away, up toward the sky, one set of fingers flicking dismissively, “...shadows on the wall.” Surprise sharpened the mage’s silent stare. “The difference is that he… _allowed_ himself to be loved.”

“That…” Dorian objected almost automatically. Then he seemed confused. “That makes no sense,” he retorted. But he stood stiffly, leaning in just slightly as though he _wanted_ it to.

“I know,” he said. “I didn’t understand it either, but… for the past few weeks, I experienced it for myself,” he observed. “I can’t go back to being the same man again, after... that,” he said, and the volume of the words fell off, because even as he said them, he _heard_ them. “ _Fuck_ ,” he muttered, stabbing at his temples again.

“Do you… need a moment?” Dorian asked him, torn between concern and exasperation.

“No,” he swallowed, shaking his head. “No. I need you to understand,” he realized. “It’s important.” His voice shook just a little, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

Quiet, and then a soft scuffle next to his side as Dorian settled down, with a whiff of half-familiar cologne. “Alright, Cullen. Tell me, then,” he coaxed.

“You are…” he laughed at himself a little. “Admirable in many ways. Even platonically speaking, that much is obvious.” He laced his fingers together, eyes on the rift. “You’re brave, and clever - and he could hardly be anything else. Only… he decided, at some point, to let someone love him - to _accept_ that situation - and it truly changed him, I think. Or at least, it brought out parts of him that had been dormant before, I-I couldn’t say,” he gestured sheepishly, reached for his neck, nearly elbowed his conversational partner, and put his arm down again.

Ignoring his awkward fidgeting, Dorian seemed to take a moment to drink in the words, his own profile chasing the direction of Cullen’s regard - toward the rift. “Go on.”

“I think that it made him stronger than he already was,” he said. “That - that sounds presumptuous,” he added apologetically. “Only, I also… _feel_ stronger than I did, as a person, when you left. I feel like…” he raised both palms upward, staring down into them now. “I feel like there is someone out there who has seen the worst of me, and still thinks that I am _enough_.” He choked on the words, but forced himself to go on again, hoarsely. “It… it _matters_. To me.”

Dorian glanced down into his hands, and chose his words carefully. “You _are_ a good man, Cullen,” he said quietly, his words drifting no further than the ex-Templar’s ear. “It seems ridiculous to me that you should have to be convinced of that.”

“I’ve always felt the same of you - though you seemed to, I don’t know… _embrace_ it, when people let you believe the worst of yourself, even as I _feared_ the same in myself.” He stretched his legs forward slowly, resting his boots a step lower. “But you are not Tevinter, and I am not the Templar Order. We’re allowed to be imperfect, yet we can still be _good_. Right?”

Reading the rough-edged uncertainty in his words, Dorian looked at his face, and then looked away again. “I… should like to think so.”

It was silly that it felt good f to hear him say so. “It’s easy - _easier_ to be kind to people… to - to feel at ease rather than just _faking_ it, or to… do what needs to be done without feeling fear of recrimination, if you feel stronger and supported. I think perhaps it’s easier to make distinctions about what’s really important and what isn’t, and… to realize that other people aren’t always thinking the worst of you, when you feel you have a measure of acceptance.”

Cullen forced himself to stop, to reevaluate his words. “I can only speak for myself, really. I… these past few weeks, I felt less pressure to - to _prove_ I could be good by putting myself last. I thought I could rely on the people around me more than I had in the past, and it’s just… a slight change in my way of thinking. I only wonder what it would be like if I could have continued like this. I wonder if he could be… proud of me, like he was of his husband.”

Next to his elbow, the mage said very little. He was taking as much of it in as he could, clearly, but Cullen suddenly felt very embarrassed to have spouted off like that. Clearing his throat, he went to close the topic.

“You’re capable of all of that, and possibly more,” he said. “If you wanted to,” he added belatedly. “I bet, if you asked Bull, he would agree - your love could make a man feel like a king.” He forced himself to stand, getting only a little woozy when he did, and turned to ascend the steps to the battlements. With a sigh, he rounded the corner of the landing, and heard Dorian rise hastily to follow him. “You don’t have to accompany me,” he frowned as the _altus_ fell in step.

“He was, um… bunking in your tower, was he not?” Dorian asked, after delicately clearing his throat. “If there is a letter to be found, does it not stand to reason that it would be there?” Arching one eyebrow, he accepted the Commander’s perfunctory nod.

“I suppose. Only, I was going to take a nap,” he admitted.

“You?” Dorian leaned away from him, astonished. “Since when?”

“They seem to be helping me,” he admitted, flushing. “He… insisted.”

“A ploy to get you into bed, I see,” Dorian narrowed his eyes, not quite smirking. “Perhaps there is more of me in this wild Fereldan _altus_ than I was led to believe.”

“Stop making it filthy,” he complained mildly, though he had to admit it was amusing.

Letting them both into the office, Dorian looked around. “So. Where did you spend the most time together? Ah, _bed_ , am I right?” he breezed.

“I said _stop_ ,” he reiterated, flustered.

“It wasn’t suggestive until you made it so,” the mage shot right back, unperturbed. He paused, however, halfway up the ladder. “I thought he had a bad leg? How did he get up and down here?”

“He did have,” Cullen replied, exasperated. “I saw the scars; they were quite extensive. I don’t know - he just did.”

“I’ll bet you did,” he murmured, resuming his climb.

“ _Dorian!_ ”

“You said you helped him out of the bath!” He reasoned, voice floating down from overhead. “Naturally I should assume you have seen what all there is to be seen!” Grunting, he hauled himself off of the ladder behind the mage. “Dear Maker, I do forget about your so-called _ceiling_. It simply defies belief.”

Cullen gazed at the sky, thinking about searching for constellations while his lover swallowed him down on the edge of the bed, and his lips trembled with the effort to remain stoic.

“Look at that lewd expression,” Dorian needled him, exultantly. He smirked all the wider when Cullen lowered his head to glare at him. “I should be thanking this fellow for leaving such an entertaining legacy behind him.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Cullen admonished him, darkly. “You don’t need to be so defensive with me, Dorian,” he explained. “You’re not him. I’m not - not _comparing_ you, or… judging you.” When the _altus_ paused and looked back at him, his expression was indecipherable. “Please stop … _attacking_ me for your own amusement.” He paused, glanced away, and then back to him. “Unless you actually _are_ angry with me. In which case, we should talk about that.”

“I’m not - !” The protest died on his lips, subsumed under an agonizing moment of introspection. “I don’t mean to,” he offered - as close to an apology as he was likely to issue. “I just… what… what _are_ we, now?”

Cullen raised his hands and buried his palms into his eyes again, rubbing with a sigh. “I don’t know - _friends_.” The word was stark, blunt. “We’re _friends_. If I’m… any more fond of you, then it’s in the nature of… I don’t know, the fondness I feel for Mia’s husband, for example. Perhaps the way a person would feel about their partner’s twin?”

“Are you saying…” Dorian’s brows wrinkled so sharply that Cullen was afraid he had downright insulted the man, utterly puzzled. “Are you saying we are like _family_ now?”

“I… hadn’t thought of it in that manner,” he admitted, one thumb smoothing over his lower lip thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose it feels _wrong_ , to put it like that.” He looked the mage over, top to toe, considering the idea. “Why not, then?” he asked, one corner of his mouth quirking upward. “If that wouldn’t _embarrass_ you too terribly,” he cajoled with a chuckle.

Dorian looked away, biting his lower lip and fidgeting. Cullen crossed to his armor stand and began to strip the metal from his body, flexing his hands at last when the leather gloves were off of him. “You really are going to take a nap?”

“I told you I would,” he groused.

“Look for the letter first!” the mage insisted scathingly, and turned around in the space. “Okay, so the bed. Do you have any bed storage?” He rifled through the pillows and the tunic there, and it annoyed Cullen a little, but when he thought of what it had been like when Branson was a young boy, it ameliorated the aggravation a little. Dorian fluffed the blankets to look.

“Now you’re being silly,” he remarked, and yet he also joined the search. “I’ll check my trunk, which he seemed to feel completely entitled to explore at his convenience,” he remarked. “Must be a family trait.” He pulled the trunk out, and flipped open the lid, hinges squeaking.

Ignoring the jibe, the _altus_ sniffed. “Move over, I’ll check the wardrobe,” Dorian climbed over the far side of the bed and pushed the trunk out of the way with one booted foot.

“You just want to be nosy and get into my stuff,” Cullen accused him, though he couldn’t even really feel that angry about it, and in fact had to smother a chuckle.

“Gracious Maker, Cullen - how many copies of the Chant of Light does one man _need? Oh_ , enough to hide his personal supply of oil, at least,” he remarked.

“ _Andraste’s arse_ , Dorian,” he snarled, flushing. “...Most of those were gifts.”

“Naturally,” he soothed, amused. “Though to be fair, I would have expected the letter to be with the oil. It’s what _I_ would have done.” He wouldn’t have put it past the other Dorian either, and his lip curled in amusement.

Silence settled as the mage finished with his wardrobe. “I see I have a new mission - a disaster relief effort, to do something about your clothing situation,” he swore, closing the doors. He long-stepped over the trunk, and Cullen leaned back to let him pass. “What’s this?”

Craning his head over his shoulder, Cullen replied, “Oh, it’s a… sort of a poor man’s shrine to Andraste,” he shrugged. “You know what, check there. We did pray together a couple of times.”

“I’m sorry, I know you said words, but all I heard was a strange noise in my head,” Dorian blinked like a mabari hearing a dog whistle, and the Fereldan man laughed at him as he settled his belongings and closed the trunk. “Not in here.” Pushing it out of the way, he hauled himself to his feet, suppressing a yawn in the back of one wrist.

“Could it be downstairs in your desk?” Dorian asked, turning the hinged folded wood over, and scouting around the small table where it sat, but finding nothing.

“It’s possible,” he admitted. “That’s where we always ate dinner, and -”

“ _...And what_?” Dorian inquired slyly when he realized Cullen had cut himself off for a reason. Going flush-red didn’t help his case, certainly. “Aha,” he intuited. “Knew it.”

“Never you mind _what_ ,” he grumbled, swivelling on one foot toward the ladder. He glanced at the empty bathtub and stool as he did. “Wait, it could be in the books we were reading.” He turned back.

“Disgusting,” the mage remarked, realigning the shrine on the small table. At Cullen’s sharp glare, he elaborated. “Well, it is. _Disgustingly domestic_.”

“Have you ever tried reading a book with Bull?”

“But I’ve already read _Hard in Hightown_ ,” the mage complained.

“Maker’s breath, Dorian; give the man a little credit. I think we can safely say you’re the _little brother_ between the two of us.” Cullen huffed a sigh as he bent down to look through the books piled next to his side of the bed. His side. He had a _side_ in his own bed now.

“Wh- I’m _older!_ ” The _altus_ protested indignantly.

“Oh? Are you _sure?_ ” the Commander asked, goading him a little.

“You know perfectly well I was born in Drakonis and you were born in Kingsway!” he cut off his combative retort, and Cullen heard rummaging at the table holding his washbasin. “Well, Commander - you have hidden depths, I see.”

When he turned, Dorian was uncapping the little half-used bottle of lotion, taking a noseful at the rim of the glass jar. He seemed pleasantly surprised. “He didn’t want to use your things,” Cullen explained, looking away again. When he looked up, the mage had stopped and was staring at him. “Oh, put it back,” he muttered.

“Cullen,” he said, and the sound of the jar hitting the wood clattered slightly. His voice was wary, and that drew the Commander’s attention. “I might have located what we seek.”

He was extracting a folded, sealed paper from behind the place where the jar rested. Recognizing the paper from his own desk, he held out both hands and stood as Dorian carried it to him with both hands, carefully. One brow rose when he took in the sight of the penmanship.

Breath hitching, Cullen swallowed and sat on the edge of the bed. Dorian hovered a moment, and at last perched himself lightly atop the trunk lid, fingers of one hand curling around his rings. His favorite ring was missing - had never been on that finger - and he shook himself, putting mental distance between the mage and himself as he opened the top of the letter.

_Cullen,_

_Some version of you has called me brave in the past, but I do not feel so as I write this letter. I have struggled to stem the ferocity of my emotions regarding you in this past fortnight - to give you what will benefit you, rather than what I want. I suppose it could be said that I have done well, but the bar for that standard is so laughably low right now that I commit what I cannot say to this paper, in turmoil._

_My intention is for you to read this when I have departed. If I am unable to pretend that you could not possibly feel as I do, then I may not have the strength to do my duty - a concept whose definition and limitation I have struggled with since before I cast my first spell. I know you understand. Duty has led you to the darkest of places; once, it even led you out again._

_In you I see a starkness, a bitterness, which I had salved early and often in my husband. You steeled yourself against blows, danger, and poison in the soil of each place you took root. Despite the odds, you not only survived Kinloch, Kirkwall, and the bloody Blight - you were tempered into a thing of both beauty and integrity. A man cannot shame the sword nor the dog who comes for his throat; the blame lies solely in the hands of the wielder. Never again allow yourself to be wielded by someone unworthy, my love, and your heart will be stronger for it._

_If I had met you first, I do not know that I would have loved in the same way that I do, but the Maker showed wisdom in feeding my heart first before bringing me to your door. I met you at the exact moment I needed you, against astronomical odds. If anything I’ve done can save you, as you have saved me, then I may once again believe that the Maker can create miracles in Thedas. I now remember what it is to feel loved; and hearing you speak the Chant, I recall hope._

_In the coming nights, remember that duty was the only thing with the power to keep me from your side. If the cost of being yours had been anything less than an innocent life, I would have paid it gladly to spend every remaining day with you. Meeting you once beat all odds. Meeting you twice in one life is the substance of legends._

_Sum tuus in aeternum,_

_Ser Dorian of clan Rutherford_

As he unfolded the letter fully, something light and thin fluttered into his lap. Surprised, he darted his fingers down to stop its descent. A flower, he realized; pressed flat, and still almost-fresh enough to be soft. It was a delicate white with petals that shaded down into pink and white inside. Lifting it to his nose, he took a whiff of the fading, vellum-soaked fragrance.

“What is it?” Dorian asked delicately.

“Andraste’s Grace,” Cullen replied in a wondering tone. “In fact, it’s so rare, I can’t even imagine where he got… ah. Leliana, perhaps.” The mage’s brows rose curiously. “Her favorite.”

“May I ask why he enclosed one to you?” he asked patiently. “I can’t particularly say that it’s a gift _I_ have ever bestowed.”

“Andraste’s Grace mostly grows in Ferelden,” he explained. “In the language of flowers, it means, um…” he arranged the flower back in the letter with care. “It could be literal - ‘ _Andraste’s Grace be with you_ ,’ but just as commonly it’s referenced because it is such a humble flower. It grows wild, in unexpected places; it seems unperturbed by the presence of swamps or fens, or rotting wood. Figuratively, it represents _‘blooming in the face of adversity_.’”

“I didn’t expect you to be so adept in such a topic,” Dorian’s moustache slanted upward.

“Well, it’s one of those … it’s a Fereldan thing,” he blushed. He looked over the letter again. The mage was curious. He wasn’t sure he wanted to share, but something told him the burden would weigh less if he did, so he finally, reluctantly, held out the missive. Dorian’s brow quirked upward, silver eyes checking his certainty before he accepted it to read.

“ _Dorian_ ,” the voice came from the far corner after the mage lowered the letter, folding it carefully after a delicate wince. Startled, Cullen jumped, and found Cole lounging in the empty bathtub, his boots hung over the edge as he flipped through a book he held up overhead. Dorian seemed just as surprised, though he carefully handed the letter over before turning. “Dorian, why does this Tevene poet want to have sex with his enemies?”

Cullen recalled the conversation the question had sprouted from, and chuffed a laugh behind his curled-up fist. Undaunted, Cole continued, flipping the pages. “Well, darling,” he imitated the northern drawl, “...it’s all very rude and insulting, you see. Where you Fereldans may hear spicy love poetry, it’s very much a _magic duel at dawn_ sort of thing back in Minrathous, you understand.”

Dorian snickered in delight as the boy went on, mimicking the more reticent southern expression, “Why do you _alti_ not simply say as you mean? Can you imagine how many hours of the day you would save? Years even, once you add them up.” And he answered the other half of the conversation, “ _Mellitus_ , efficiency is terribly _plebeian_.” Dropping the book onto his own chest, Cole finally swivelled his head to look at the two next to the bed. “I don’t understand it either, Cullen,” he admitted, in his own inflection this time.

“It would take all that saved time to teach you about all of the unhealthy attitudes the Imperium fosters toward sex, for all that the southerners revel in gossip of our debauchery,” Dorian rose and sauntered across to where the boy reclined, reaching down both hands to help him up. Cole did not require assistance, but he allowed Dorian to pull him to his feet, and stepped out of the tub on his own.

“You rarely _enjoyed_ your encounters, in the Imperium,” Cole observed wonderingly, wide eyes fixed onto him as he trailed in the mage’s wake. “Why? Everyone here treats it differently. You are still unlearning that it need not always be a weapon.”

“We’re getting a bit too personal again, Cole,” Dorian made a _face_ , and Cullen knew now that it was a face of embarrassment, rather than annoyance.

“Don’t worry,” the boy assured him, and he deposited himself on the floor facing the Commander. “Cullen doesn’t know everything, but he understands.”

“It doesn’t matter, Cole,” the Fereldan man admonished him gently. “If it makes Dorian uncomfortable, you should stop.” He paused and took a deep breath, looking at the folded paper in his hands. “This… this is the letter you wanted me to find?” The boy nodded earnestly. Closing his eyes, Cullen’s brows knit as he felt the world sway. “ _Why?_ ” he demanded. “It … reading about how he feels makes it _harder_ , not easier. It doesn’t seem all that _Compassionate_ of you to insist as you have.”

“Why?” Cole asked him right back, unflinchingly. “Why does it hurt?”

“Are you really so different from us, Cole? Are there not people you…” he licked his lips, bringing up the heel of his free hand to cover the back of his neck awkwardly. He glanced at Dorian, who had dropped back onto the trunk again, and was watching them. “Do you understand that it _hurts_ that I cannot go to him? That I - that I’ve never wanted so much to - to make things better, to… _be_ with him, and I _can’t?_ ”

Cole’s expression didn’t move very much, other than a slight press of his lips, a little tilt of his head, a short flash of his teeth. “Why can’t you?” he asked. “ _Why not today?_ ”

“It’s -” exasperated, Cullen tossed one hand into the air. “It’s hardly an issue of just _wanting!_ ” he groaned, setting the letter next to him. “It’s _impossible_ \- I would not exchange someone’s life to go there, any more than he would exchange _Dorian’s_ to stay here!” He gestured to the mage, who was frowning at him rather intently. “I was at the meeting, I heard how he and Alexius explained that the world hates paradox, and-” he shook his head.

“Paradox?” Dorian leaned forward, scooting to the edge of the trunk, intrigued. “ _Fasta vass,_ I’m sure that theory probably holds some validity,” he mused, unconsciously smoothing his moustache while he thought through it. “ _Alexius_ must have thought of that. It hadn’t occurred to me over there on my lonesome - but yes, it makes sense! It wasn’t mere happenstance - I _exchanged_ places with him in an act of _paradox avoidance!”_

Sounding triumphant as he did, the mage momentarily forgot Cullen’s lack of enthusiasm. “I take it you haven’t spoken to Alexius since you returned.”

“No,” he grimaced. “I… wait a minute.” He put one fist into the palm of his other hand, creating the sound of a _smack_ of knuckles on skin. “Cullen, _you’re_ not a paradox!”

“I… beg your pardon?”

“Yes,” Cole was agreeing, sounding rather uncommonly enthusiastic for himself as well, as though he were riding the same stagecoach that Dorian was. “Mustn’t tell him; he has a life here. _His happiness_ can still be protected. I had my chance at happiness, and I failed to keep him close. I cannot be so selfish a second time,” he intoned, now sadly.

“Clearly, I must depart this snow-and-mud-filled hellhole as quickly as possible,” Dorian turned his eyes toward the hole in the ceiling as though appealing to the Maker himself, “...as you Fereldans and your _nobility_ are so bloody _contagious_.”

“Are either of you going to start making sense?” Cullen demanded.

Dorian sized him up somberly for a moment, and Cole buried his chin in the tops of his knees. “He couldn’t ask you to give everything up,” the boy offered at last.

“What he means,” the mage slipped in smoothly, “...is that, under the right conditions, you _would_ be able to go to him, Cullen; because you no longer exist in that world, you are in no danger of creating a paradox. He…” the _altus_ bit his lip. “He _knew_ that. He was telling you,” one set of brown fingers ghosted over the folded letter. “...that if things had been the reverse, he would have stayed, for you. But he couldn’t, because of _me_. We _are_ a paradox.”

“He already felt so guilty,” Cole murmured. “Fear of hurting you, hurting your future.”

Cullen struggled to take it in, blinking wide-eyed at the spots of sun hitting the floor from the windows. _He wanted to stay… he knew we could be together?_

He glanced at the spirit when the boy nodded, the brim of his hat flopping gently. Dorian took up the explanation. “My counterpart apparently felt that he could not demand that sacrifice of you, and so he chose to let you go. Cole, however, wants you to know that you have the option to be with him, if you left this world.” Dorian hesitated. “Of course, you would have to give up everything, wouldn’t you? Your family, your friends - there would be some over there who would accept you, but you would be going to a world where everyone thinks you are dead. They’re grieving you and moving on.”

Raising his eyes with effort, he searched the mage’s face. For once, Dorian spoke and reacted plainly; man-to-man, with whatever insight he could offer. “The Inquisition has a new Commander, Ser Hawke,” he explained. “Your duties have been passed to him and _his_ captains, some of whom were your friends - some of whom travelled halfway across Thedas to watch your cremation. Your family has come to terms with the fact that they never really knew you that well. They thought perhaps, when your duties were done, that would change; now they have reconciled themselves to the idea that they will never have that chance.”

Wandering the room, his eyes picked up strange details of the crumbling stone in the corners; ivy descending the walls, the leak in the corner that had spoiled the floor. It looked like a life he had never truly taken full possession of. “But they are still family,” he murmured vaguely at last. “There are still friends. I still have this body, and I can still…” What? What would he even do? How would he contribute?

“Of course,” Dorian said kindly. “You do not know this Inquisitor, but she is not a bad woman. They would know your value. And after - you never know. Perhaps peace and companionship will agree with you, after so much _duty?_ ” he asked, with a ginger sort of smile.

Closing his eyes, he nodded, with a gargantuan effort. “If I… go to him,” his heart skipped, and he swallowed to cover the sudden breathless feeling it left behind. _Mia, Bran, Rose_ , he thought privately. “If I … how? How would we…?”

Dorian was quiet, glancing at Cole. “He would need a connection to that world?”

Cole nodded. “He has it. He has a thread in the crack of the door, so long as it isn’t closed first.” Hearing those words, Cullen felt himself gripped by a small panic. The chance was so small, so… nearly impossible, without that risk.

“So far as we know, it cannot be closed yet. I…” Dorian looked at Cullen. “Let me look into this for you,” he offered, both magnanimous and sincere. “All you must do is reach a decision. Let the rest of us be concerned about the execution.” He rose and dusted himself off, looking as though he wanted to say more. “I’ll speak to Dagna and Alexius right now. The sooner we know - the sooner a decision is made, the better. Even if it cannot be closed, the rift risks instability with each passing day.”

Cole remained behind when Dorian saw himself out. He looked down at the boy. “This is mad,” he whispered. “You’re suggesting I throw everything away to go… _Maker_ , I don’t even know anything about this world, really! All our accounts of this world are through Dorian - both Dorians.”

“But you trust them both,” Cole pointed out, sounding puzzled.

“You seem to think I should go,” Cullen asked directly.

“Yes?” He replied, sounding confused. “When he was here, you were so happy that I couldn’t hear you anymore.”

“New romances are often so,” he raised an eyebrow sardonically.

Cole didn’t mind putting him back in his place. “You wouldn’t know - you’ve never loved anyone like that before.” The Commander flushed. “You’ve never _been_ loved that way before.”

“It’s very risky,” he protested. His doubts swelled within him, his lip finding its way between his teeth again. “What if… what if he was right for his husband, but not for me? What if my family here needed me?”

“Why would you not try to be happy?” Cole countered, with unaccustomed straightforwardness. “Mia wants you to be happy. Both Dorians want that too. You even promised that you would be open to what the Maker sends you. What if… your Maker sends you _this?_ How would you know?”

For some reason, he wanted to speak to a head more level than Cole’s typically was.

Rising to his feet, the boy brushed his pants. “I’ll bring Cassandra,” he said, and disappeared down the ladder before he could protest. He laid back on the bed and gathered himself. He was so tired he didn’t feel he could think straight, but he saw himself down the ladder in a distracted daze, the letter and its pressed flower clutched in hand.

At his desk, he dug in his deepest drawer. There was a file he kept in case of emergencies - his own death in the Arbor Wilds, or if, in the early days, he had suddenly failed his struggle against the lyrium withdrawals, or any sickness - for whatever contingency, he had written up a plan that named Cassandra Pentaghast as the interim Inquisition Commander, and apportioned out duties to Leliana and other members of his support staff.

_I have decided nothing,_ he advised himself sternly; this situation had simply brought to light the fact that his plan was out of date. Cassandra would remain with the Inquisition for only another month or so, at best. While he left her name in place, he now added the names of Captain Rylen and Knight-Captain Briony as potential interim replacements. He apportioned out duties to other soldiers who had risen in the ranks, putting in new names for soldiers who had fallen in battle or departed after the Breach was sealed. He specified the parties who should be in agreement to appoint his successor.

The door to his office opened, and Cassandra sauntered in at a good clip, forehead dotted in perspiration. “Cullen, what is the emergency?” she inquired immediately, her eyes looking him over at his desk, puzzled when he appeared to be reasonably well. “Cole said that I needed to come to you right away.”

“Well,” he cleared his throat awkwardly, dipping his pen back into the inkwell as the door ghosted shut behind her. “Thank you for coming, Cassandra. It’s not an emergency, per se,” he began, threading his bare fingers together tightly, knuckles whitening in an effort to curb a fidget. “But I did want to talk with you. I have… relied on your judgment heavily, since you, well - _rescued_ me, from Kirkwall,” he gave her an abashed smile.

Blinking, the Nevarran woman tugged at the fingertips of her gloves, looking baffled. Seeing that there was no need for combat readiness, she saw herself over and appropriated the chair Dorian had carted over to the office a few weeks ago. Placing it catty-corner from him at the side of his desk, she lowered herself uneasily onto it. “Cullen, if you have been saved from anything,” she began with an uncertain, thick voice, “...then it was you who rescued yourself from it. With some help from Andraste and the Maker, perhaps.”

“I believe in assigning credit where it is due, _Most Holy_ ,” he teased, and she snorted in good-natured amusement at his gentle teasing. “I… would not have had the confidence to begin the first step of this journey, were it not for your support,” he confessed. “I have slowly come closer to the man I want to be for the rest of my life. Now, I think, I am either being given an opportunity which cannot be explained in normal terms - or I am about to lose my mind,” he went on, somewhat meekly, squeezing his laced fingers together.

“Tell me what is happening,” she urged, leaning her left arm onto the edge of the desk.

“You’ve heard the rumors,” he began. Her delicately-arched brows rose slightly. “About, um. The other Dorian, and I,” he squeezed the words out in short chunks, blushing. One hand freed itself from the other to rub the back of his neck. Her eyes lit up, surprised that he would even discuss such a thing with her.

“You know I try not to pay attention to rumors,” she demurred. “However, they were difficult to ignore, in this instance.” She sized him up. “Particularly as you looked quite… well, I’m not sure I should say _content_ , but…” the woman shrugged. “So, at least some of those tales are true?” She pressed, when he flushed quietly again for a moment.

“Cassandra, I - I want to be with him,” he blurted out.

“I - _oh_.” Taken aback, the former Seeker leaned back in her chair, looking him over. “Cullen,” she began delicately in her rich accent, and the look on her face was brimming with empathy, under her flush. “I understand this perhaps was a, ah… _unique_ experience, but - but Dorian is involved with The Iron Bull, and, well…”

“ _No_ ,” he raised both hands in a warding gesture, then clubbed them together again, flushing as well and gritting his teeth. “Not him!” he protested.

Wrinkling her nose, she seemed quite hesitant. “Uh, then… The Iron Bull?”

“What?” he couldn’t completely stifle the incredulous giggle. “Maker, no! Dorian. The _other_ one,” he specified sharply, mightily embarrassed. “Him. I li-” Wouldn’t come out. He tried again, “I lo- it’s… they're not the same,” he insisted.

Comprehension came at last, though her face was still pink under its natural tan. “But he - that other Dorian - he has already left this world.” She thought again. “Clearly Cole is involved - does that mean that he’s simply concerned for you?” Cullen took a breath hesitantly, and something in his face must have clued her in. “ _Oh!_ Then… there might be some feasible way?” Her voice was hopeful; her face half skeptical, and half alight with curiosity.

Closing his eyes, he nodded slowly. “Cole and Dorian - our own Dorian, that is - seem convinced of it. I… wanted him to stay, but we both knew that that wouldn’t have been fair. Now, I… I have him in my head. In my…” he pressed the hand from the back of his neck over his heart for a moment, swallowing again around his blush. “Would it not be too selfish?” He essayed the question reluctantly, feeling more uncertain than he knew how to handle. “The Inquisition is strong now, but I’m still its Commander, still in a position of authority.”

“You are worried that you are needed? Or that you would be letting someone down?” She was sizing him up as he spoke, the light twinkling eagerly in her dark eyes. He nodded once, a sharp little motion that cost a lot to make. “...But if you were not? If the burden of command were not upon you?”

“Then I… I would have asked to go with him,” he admitted, hands tensing in and out of fists. “Had I known it were feasible, that is. He…” he took a shaky breath. “He trusts me. He… feels more, for me. And I - I feel the same.” Saying so, he couldn’t look her in the eye, but after a moment, he cleared his throat, and met her gaze. “At first, I feared he saw only a shadow of his husband in me, just as, at first, I only saw my friend in him,” he explained. “But he’s so… our lives were intertwined in that world, and I got the benefit of seeing him in a way I should have had to _earn_. It was - it was a _gift_ , Cassandra. One I do not wish to spurn.”

She was weighing him as he spoke, and it made him nervous - but it was what he needed. She had always given him a sense of accountability, of stability. He quickly, silently thanked the Maker for her. Regardless, her silence unnerved him, and for once, he rushed to fill it. “Cole says that he knew he could not stay, but that I could go. Yet he didn’t ask me to go because he wanted my happiness. Part of me worries if that’s really all it was. To be honest, Cole’s never lied to me, but this situation is so…” he lifted a hand demonstratively, and she nodded a silent sign of comprehension. “And then there’s…”

Handing the letter over to anyone was not easy, but Cassandra removed her gloves and handled it delicately, her brows rising as she read it, her face flushing as though the letter were addressed to her. “What is this part?” she pointed at the Tevene sign-off.

“Uh, I know this part means, _I am yours,_ ” he murmured, looking only at the letter and firmly _not_ at her, “and the rest sounds sort of like the Trade word ‘eternity,’ I think…” he was flushing now too.

Placing the letter down carefully on the desk, she touched the flower gently and looked up at him, a slight frown on her face. “If there were not a world between you, there would be no question, then?” she asked softly. “No doubt in your mind?”

He had to search himself, and as he did, his lips twitched toward a smile, though he could feel the tightness around his eyes as he lived through another bittersweet fantasy. “I found nothing to dislike about our time together,” he offered at last. “Rather, I miss him - to the point where I’ve argued with Dorian about it - about what it means, and…” He took a breath.

She propped her chin on her knuckles, the other hand folding the letter closed as she gazed at him. “I’ve never seen you like this,” she observed, intent on his face. “You almost look… _younger_ , Cullen.” He fought the rise of the corner of his mouth in response, and failed.

“Cassandra, I know that you know how hard I have worked to get where I am. Days are still difficult, even years after leaving the Templars. When he was with me, the pain and the nightmares were so much easier to bear. I feel stronger when he looks at me. I can… barely tear my thoughts away from the idea that this may be my last chance to be with him,” he raised his eyes to hers again, thinking of the way he felt when Dorian was in his arms, or leaned against his side; the night they had woken when it was so cold their breath fogged, and they’d done a proper perusal of the constellations together. _Look at that one,_ Dorian had said, pointing to a small pinprick of light. _It’s larger, and it’s always blue_. “If I don’t go, if I don’t _try_ … Maker, I’ve always played it safe, Cass. What if… what if I regret it for the rest of my life?”

“Then you should go,” she said. He sucked in a breath quickly enough that it almost made him hurt. “What?” She asked, a sudden sparkle in her eye as though he’d amused her with his expression. “Did you really think I would dissuade you? Your decisions are rarely foolish ones. If they were, I would not have asked you to become the Commander of the Inquisition Army.” One hand rested briefly on his forearm, feeling almost bare without his customary metal shell. “You have placed a great deal of trust in me, with your life, and as far as I am concerned, you have never let me down, Cullen,” she assured him, her accent thick and ponderously thoughtful. “Why do you not think that trust goes both ways?”

Surprised, he shook his head inarticulately. “I - I suppose I just never…” he looked down. “I - Junou…” he began, sadly. Another person who wasn’t on the other side.

“If your heart is decided, Commander, you need not fear telling her. She may not agree with you, but she would hardly stop you, I suspect,” she pursed her lips. “That Dwarf will be absolutely _beside_ himself when he learns about all of this happening when he is so far away.”

Unable to stay stoic, he gave her a half-grin. “Permission to rub it in Varric’s face is granted, Cassandra.” She couldn’t help a rather mean-spirited but fond smile of her own. “I’ll go talk to the Inquisitor, I think.” He paused a moment. “But, Cassandra… my family.” He took a breath, biting his lip. “I should leave word for them, at least. I hate the idea that I would make them upset, or that I might never see them again…”

“Of course, they would not be keen to lose you. Many things come between families, Cullen - this is sort of like an extended form of long-distance, is it not?” She sounded kind, but she wasn’t smiling. “We could arrange to look in on them, I suspect,” the former Seeker offered gently.

“Not to make it too personal, Cassandra, but I dare to ask…” he shored up his courage. “What if it were Antony? If nothing changed, but you received a last letter from him to say he was doing something as foolhardy as this,” he gestured at the letter, at his own person, self-deprecatingly.

For a moment, she thought it through. “I would find peace in it, even if I could never see him again,” she concluded gravely, sadness touching her countenance. “ _Maker_ , if only.”

“I’m sorry,” he dropped his fingertips lightly on the back of her hand, but did not seek to hold. She nodded, and watched him pick up the letter. “I will leave word for them. I’ll leave them everything I have,” he added. “I’m a soldier. I need very little.” _Except…_

Junou was resting in her room, but he sought to interrupt her solitude regardless. Her open-door policy was well-known, but her off hours were highly respected. She called down for him to enter, and he closed the door behind him, slogging up the last flight of stairs to find her sitting on the small couch at the top. She was sharpening a knife; he reminded himself that she was one of relatively few mages he was aware of who was proficient with small martial weapons.

“Commander,” she greeted him, somewhat neutrally. “I hoped you’d come see me.” She gestured at the bed across from her. Seeing as she was sitting with her knees spread wide and a plethora of sharp weapons on the couch next to her, he ignored the impropriety and perched on the edge of her bed. As he did, her whetstone moved smoothly along the edge of her blade. “How are you feeling?”

He knew he should answer the question - should ease his way into this conversation - but he suddenly felt the words pressing at the back of his lips. “Inquisitor -” her brow quirked at him, and he huffed a small sigh. “Junou. I... “ He took a deep breath to regain his confidence. He wished suddenly that he had worn his armor. “I... “ So many versions of his confession tumbled in his head. What came out at last was, “I’m going to him.”

Her brows rose in solemn surprise, and he watched it pass slowly over her features, washing away at approximately the same speed. A last few circling scrapes of the stone died away into the quiet room, and she took a moment to measure both the edge of her blade and her response to his statement. “I can’t really see how you would,” she replied after a long, thoughtful exhale. “But I can’t really say I’m surprised to hear that you would try.”

“You - what?” The Commander couldn’t say that his response was very well measured. Flustered, he gripped his fingertips into his knees on both legs.

“Never seen a man fall so hard so fast, Cullen,” she chuckled. Reaching for the knife’s scabbard, Adaar’s lips curved up in a smile. She wasn’t wearing her lipstick at the moment, so the liner around her eyes stood out all the more, making her eyes luminous in the light from the balconies. The fire crackled in the quiet as he struggled with the observation. “It’s not something you need to feel bad for,” she relented at last. “I just… want to know you’re clear-headed right now.”

“I talked with Cassandra,” he admitted. “To be honest, I feel… like I should be somewhere else,” he said, and as he did, he glanced toward the balcony door to his left. “Like something has ended, and I’ve yet to move on to what’s next.”

“I see,” she murmured, and there was a rising intonation in the small statement that put a genuine contemplation into her words. “And you think that this next stage is in another world? Away from your friends, your family and colleagues, with a man you’ve only known for three weeks - and just so happens to be someone you counted only as a friend in this world?”

“Sounds mad,” he acknowledged, but the scarred side of his lip drifted upward, because he saw the humor in it, and it made him feel light.

“Uh-huh,” she acknowledged. “And Most Holy gave you her blessing, did she?”

“It… if it’s not possible, then… then I’ll have to learn to accept it,” he concluded. “The Maker will have to decide if he’ll allow another miracle to take place. Dorian and Cole will soon know if it’s even feasible. If it is, I’ll try to take the amulet with me. We know it can survive a transfer, we just have to ensure it isn’t separated from me during use. But if it _is_ possible, then…”

“Well,” the Herald pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Want me to put in a good word with Andraste?” They held one another’s gazes intently for a moment before neither of them could keep a straight face any longer. Junou sniggered through her nose as she set her knife and whetstone aside, lacing her fingers in her lap.

“Blasphemy,” he whispered, rubbing a hand over his mouth to hide his grin.

“It’s only blasphemy if you believe,” she bantered back easily, as she had a dozen times before. “I think I’ve gotten to know you at least a little bit over the years, Cullen. I guess it took a lot to work yourself up to this, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to dissuade you. Just… one condition,” she raised one long digit.

Warily, nodded his head one time. “What is it?”

“You’ll make sure to try to give yourself a way back home, hmm? What if you’re not welcome there? If Trevelyan turns you away, or… what if what you have with Dorian isn’t what you think it is?” The worry that briefly surfaced in her expression was palpable. “I want to believe he would return you here if that came to pass, based on three weeks of casual interactions with him. I just want you to be prepared for everything.”

Accepting her kindness without comment, Cullen lowered his head in acquiescence, and ended up looking down at his own worn boots. “I… put together a list. Cassandra would oversee the transition until she departs for Val Royeaux. We have some good men and women -”

“I know,” she interrupted. “I’m not worried about that, though I hate to lose a damn fine Commander. But honestly, you’ve never looked better in the time I’ve known you than you do now. Who am I to say no to that?” She shook her head, and stood. Reflexively, he followed suit, once she towered over him, and he responded to her outthrust hand by returning the handshake. With a deliberately slow movement, she clapped her free arm around him in a brief, congenial embrace. “Knock ‘em dead, Cullen.”

He shook his head ruefully, then offered her a bit of a smile as they parted.

It took him some time to find Dorian, and when he did, it was in a secluded, guarded room deep in the bowels of the keep proper. His guards let him into Magister Alexius’ room with a cursory knock, and inside he found Gereon and his former apprentice occupying two sides of a tiny table, with Dagna perched on the small bed, feet curled up beneath her, the three of them arranged in a small group. After a moment, something moved in his peripheral vision, and he caught a flash of light against Cole’s hands, betraying his presence.

“You don’t look like the entertainer we ordered,” Dorian quipped lightly. “Though I wouldn’t mind seeing you dance.” He rolled his eyes unsubtly, and the _altus_ flashed a grin at him. Dagna and Alexius greeted him, and he glanced around the cell. It was adequate, but lackluster. He might leave a note, he thought, to ask that the former magister be afforded a few more luxuries, in light of his cooperation.

Probing unsubtly, the older man’s stare nearly pierced him through. “You will be traveling through the rift, with the birthright?” He blinked from Cullen to Dorian. “He cannot. He’s not a mage.”

“Don’t be so short-sighted, Alexius,” Dorian quipped back, sounding combative.

“But how will he activate the spell on the birthright? It is quite complex,” the Tevinter man insisted. “Were he magically-inclined, he could at least be taught the activation spell. Would any mage activating it on his behalf not be drawn in as well?”

“I can do it,” Dorian insisted, a touch of defensiveness in his voice. “I can activate the spell without being in physical contact with the Commander. I need to be in proximity, yes, but I don’t have to be touching him or the focus.”

“How could you possibly do that?” his former mentor challenged.

“Well, I didn’t need physical contact to shit up your plans in Redcliffe, did I?” he snapped, and the whole room chilled by a few degrees. Alexius held himself still, fingertips digging into the table. He was conflicted about that, but the insult in the _altus’_ words was unveiled for once. Dagna’s eyes were big and round, though not a peep came out of her, and Cole tilted his head up to regard the older man across the room.

“He didn’t want to be saved, Dorian,” the spirit offered into the quiet.

“I don’t give a _damn_ what he wanted! What about what _Felix_ wanted? What I - what the people who _cared_ about him wanted?” Rising to his feet, he spun away. Cullen could hardly get out of his path in the small space, though there was just enough room for the mage to put the Commander between himself and Alexius.

Dagna shifted, raising her knees and resting her chin there, socked feet curling over the edge of the narrow bed. It was a very natural gesture, and everyone in the room took the moment of susurration caused by her movement to take a deep breath, collecting themselves. Cullen shot her a grateful look. She didn’t smile, but her eyes were lively when she returned his gaze.

“...He’s very familiar with the spell, of course,” the Fereldan man offered at last, when the now subdued silence got too brittle to be borne. He shifted forward and took the mage’s chair, letting Dorian face the door and rub his face with his palms. “And it is his birthright. When I served in the Circles, I believe I heard something about a mage’s familiarity with an object affecting their casting affinity?”

Allowing his attention to be dragged back to the present, the older man nodded. If anything, he looked grateful for the reprieve as well. “There seems to be an almost universal truth to that sentiment, _if_ the item in question is enchanted or magically charged.” Doing his best not to look intrigued at the distinction, Cullen saw Dagna open her mouth and then almost visibly bite back her own inquiry. “It’s not… unreasonable… to assume that an item created to allow magical amplification, which Dorian has had about his person for nigh on thirty years, might fall into that category.”

Perhaps that passed as some sort of half-arsed apology between _alti_ , because Dorian turned and scooted Dagna over to perch on the end of the bed next to her. “Cole seems to feel that Cullen is already connected to the other world,” he explained.

“Why _is_ that?” Dagna interrupted, fixing her gaze on Cole.

After a moment returning it, Cole drifted over and pointed at Cullen’s hand. He raised his ungloved fingers in response, bringing the ring into a small patch of light. “They are connected at the veins, Child of the Stone.”

“Veins?” Alexius frowned. “You don’t mean to say that blood magic will be required?”

“No, not _veins,_ ” Dagna answered the question, hands clapping with her sudden epiphany. “ _Veins!_ ”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Dorian answered woodenly, completely unenlightened.

Thinking back, Cullen remembered his lover talking about the ring in passing. “This is enchanted wedding jewelry, made in the Orzammar tradition,” he realized, and Dagna nodded furiously. “Then he means _veins_ in a mining sense.” He looked at the ring. “I don’t understand exactly, but…”

“Okay, I have a theory,” Dagna’s feet splayed out to either side behind her, knees hitting the bed, and she clapped both gloved hands to her lap. “Based on what Cole is saying, we know that the reason you have a connection is because of the ring. At first I thought it was because of the enchantment on the ring.” At the Commander’s raised eyebrows, she added, “Enchantment is a tradition in Orzammar too, ser,” and she smiled. “If what Cole’s saying is right, then they’re not connected because of that. It’s either because the ring comes from the other world, or because the two rings are made from the same thing.”

“Then any two things of the same construction could be connected,” Dorian argued.

“Not at all,” Dagna countered, shaking her head brightly. “I grew up smith caste, Dorian, so I know better than anyone - any two batches of metal, even given the _exact same_ quantities of components, can and will still have minute differences between them - based on the quality of ore, the composition of the sample site, the heat and air exposure, and the speed and skill of working - anyway,” she shook her head. “In Orzammar, smiths are subject to fines if they don’t follow tradition making and selling wedding jewelry, even to surfacers.”

“Do you mean, if they sell sets from different mining batches?” Cullen asked.

“Well, the important part begins during crafting. _Both_ rings, or bracelets, should come from the same metal charge… uh,” she watched eyes begin to glaze over. “That is, they should come from _only_ the same metals from the same veins, and both pieces _must_ be poured from the same casting. If there’s any evidence that they weren’t, or the pieces look substantially different under a microscope, well… families have been ruined over it. That’s why only a few of the most reputable and meticulous smith families will even _touch_ wedding or bonding jewelry, and why they all live in the Diamond quarter, even though they aren’t nobility.”

“In short,” Cullen prompted, “You’re saying that these rings are essentially two halves of the same whole? Or at least, more similar to one another in chemical composition than…”

“More than two sheets of paper from the same tree,” Dagna elaborated. “More than two threads spun from the same wool. Then they’re bound to one another by enchantment.”

“So,” Cullen looked around the room. “We are assuming that it will do the work of getting me where I need to go?” This was the part where his belly tightened and his nerves turned cold - submitting himself to unknown, and frankly terrifying magic. He looked at Dorian, trying to mask his anxiety, reminding himself that he trusted him. Trusted both versions of him. “That’s all there is to it?”

Dorian looked at Cole. “Truthfully; yes. The connection to his world is the most important component. He only swapped with me because he was interacting with the rift at the same time Junou’s Anchor and I were, insofar as we can figure.” He paused, smoothed down his moustache, and continued, “...However. I will be modifying the spell slightly.” All eyes turned to the _altus_. “I want to see if it’s possible to mate the rift activation spell with the enchantment in the ring. Commander, can you allow me at least a day to examine the possibility?”

“I… yes,” he nodded. “I need to prepare, anyway.” After they all advised him that they had no need of him until Dorian sought him out later, he left, and went back to his loft above his office. He looked around the small, dilapidated room, and sighed.

Impractical as it was to cart a trunk through the rift, he’d held onto some of the items in it for specific purposes. It would be better, however, to pack his small travel bag, he reasoned. Anything that could not fit in it would likely be left behind. Small tokens and his kept letters went into the bag, along with some of his sturdiest clothing. Most of the books he’d enjoyed would have to remain behind, but he included a scant few that had been sentimental gifts, inscribed by friends. Lastly, toiletries and a few key survival items he had modified for himself.

His Templar armor and sword stayed locked in the chest, along with all the trappings; his formal Inquisition uniform, his service medals, and spare clothing he couldn’t fit. Deliberately, he left behind his gifted copies of the Chant of Light, most of which he had memorized regardless, and his lyrium kit. Fear had prompted him to carry it with him from Kirkwall, and he wanted never to have to touch it again. He squeezed in a spare pair of his own boots, somehow, and gazed at the crude wooden triptych for Andraste. He couldn’t fit it, but he could pray for success. For a miracle, perhaps. He lit incense and questioned his decision in prayer, yet somehow he felt unswayed.

Downstairs, he set the lyrium kit on the corner of his desk and he wrote letters. One to Mia, to Branson, and to Rosalie. These were perhaps the most difficult letters he had ever written, and he ruined scratch paper first before compiling his thoughts in the final documents. _I have fallen in love with someone who is not part of our world. I want to be with them, and in this case, that means leaving this world. It is unlikely we will meet again. I will always care for you and think of you, and I will pray to the Maker and Andraste for you_ in each letter, along with, _I regret not having the chance to tell you in person, but time was very short_. Most pointedly, _I wish I had known how to be a better brother to you_. He wanted to tell them everything; he wanted to share with them what he felt and why, but it was impractical.

In Mia’s letter only did he say more about the way Dorian made him feel, the way that he’d been happier and healthier than he’d ever known, and that he hoped she and the others would come to forgive him. He set aside as many of his superfluous belongings as possible, storing them all in his chest; books stuffed into his Templar cuirass, a few unwieldy tokens and gifts wrapped in extra garments. His life wrapped up so neatly into one tiny bag and one box of “left behind,” to be shipped to his elder sister. He would wear his Inquisition arms and armour, and that was really all there was.

Dorian came late in the day, asking to see the ring, and Cullen watched him examine it and take notes for a while. He went back to his letters, leaving pages of procedural notes and insights for his successor. If it didn’t work, it was still a sensible precaution, he assured himself. He thought briefly about saying goodbye to Josephine and Leliana before leaving, and realized they would both be hurt, in their own ways, if he did not say anything to them. A letter might be closure for an acquaintance, but his siblings wouldn’t feel that way, nor would his colleagues.

“Are you still feeling confident?” Dorian asked him only, and he turned a page, realizing he’d just about reached the end of succession documents. It was time to draft a formal resignation, and statements of intent regarding his belongings and any decision-making done regarding his legacy.

“In my reasons for leaving? Yes. In your ability to get me there? I would rather say yes, but the more you ask…” he caught the mage’s eye briefly, managing to elicit a smirk from him. “Are you trying to tell me you cannot do it?”

“I’m pretty sure I can, as a matter of fact,” Dorian replied succinctly. “So, do you want to leave as soon as possible, then?”

Startled, he glanced from the notes to the mage. “You mean you already…?”

“Almost. I think I’ll be able to as soon as tomorrow,” he offered. “To be honest, though… I always thought of you as a defensive type. A ‘play it safe’ sort of man. It seems so out of character for you to do something like this.” Cullen tried to mask his smile by looking away.

“After how many games of chess we have played, this is what you think of me?”

“I’m not sure _what_ to do with you,” he sounded mostly serious, though playful.

“Wish me well and try to get it right the first time?” he asked through a strained grin.

“I never imagined my impetuous nature could have rubbed off on you so.”

He was scratching his chin gently, and Cullen cleared his throat. “As soon as possible, please. I hardly wish to dally, now that the decision is made. And… thank you, Dorian.” he looked down at the final report in the mini stack that he had finished signing, and stacked them together at the side of the desk. “Don’t get me wrong; as a former Templar, I’m terrified of the consequences of failure, but… I’m equally daunted by the prospect of giving up, of not even trying.” His eyes found the far wall, and Dorian’s pen slowed against the parchment, stopping while the man watched his face. “For once, the concept of ‘the rest of my life’ doesn’t seem so far-fetched,” he admitted. “For once, I feel I might even have one.”

There was little for the mage to say to this, so he sent the Commander off, no longer needing proximity to the ring. He suggested that the Fereldan man make his goodbyes with those he could not bear not to. Nodding, he crossed the eastern bridge to the rotunda, and climbed up to the rookery. Leliana was not at all surprised, not really, that he wanted to go, but he thought she seemed a touch surprised that he was actually _going_. Her face was mostly impassive, and her smile was perfect, until the very end when it slipped a little, blue eyes too warm in her face.

“At the end of the day, this world or that world - it makes little difference,” she opined. “It is only those whom you surround yourself with who matter.” He thanked her for everything, and he held her gloved hands when he said it, thinking about the day she had come to his rescue, with the others, in Kinloch, and had come again to Kirkwall with Cassandra when he was in the throes of doubt and despair. He promised her that he would do his best to rescue himself from now on.

“Go,” she commanded him. “If the Spymaster sheds a single tear, the Inquisition will fall to ruins.” He grinned at her as she dismissed him, but he saluted her back as he walked away. Maybe he could send the triptych to Leliana - though her own shrine was much nicer. So saying, he passed Dorian’s nook in the library, and Solas’ desk with the frescoed walls, and the empty chair where Varric had practically lived. Vivienne peered at him from overhead, and he ducked his head politely at her. She watched him intently, and gave the smallest of bows in return.

Josephine was at her desk, bound by quill and paper such as he himself often was. He watched her face light up when he entered the room, and felt a pang of sadness. He explained to her in the same sort of detail that he had with Leliana, and though she also seemed ready to believe, she did seem a fair bit more surprised. He supposed she didn’t employ her bardic skills in the same fashion as the Nightingale, these days.

“But will you be safe?” She wanted to know, her well-manicured hand touching his arm pensively. “Oh Cullen, have you any idea how sorely you will be missed?”

“...And how much harder your job will become, breaking in a new Commander?” he teased, but she swatted him gently, and he could tell from the sadness in her dark-fringed eyes that she’d not been thinking of this whatsoever. “There is some risk in, er… transit, but I have at least some assurance of welcome when I do arrive,” he smiled at her. “I must go,” he replied simply. “I feel ready to be the man with his hands on the reins of his own life.”

She smiled for him, very pretty, and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. When she drew back, tears were in her eyes. “Must you go straightaway?” He nodded. She produced a bottle of Antivan rum and pressed it upon him. “It’s Dorian’s favorite vintage to… borrow,” she confided. “I have so many written IOUs, one would think I were starting a collection,” she laughed.

He thanked her, and he visited the Undercroft to thank Dagna as well, though she had little new to offer him for the last leg of his journey - if it worked, it worked, and if it did not work, then nothing she provided would help. She did, however, produce a gift he had not expected; it was a silver plate, stamped with the Inquisition logo, and riveted into very tough bronto leather. She showed him how he could attach it to his belt. Apparently it had about six different enchantments laid into it, as well as a cleansing rune, and could truly be considered a masterwork.

“Dagna, you have truly outdone yourself,” he declared in gratitude. “I couldn’t possibly thank you - or justify the use of Inquisition resources,” he grinned, his hand covering where the plate sat comfortably at his belt near one hip, well away from where most attacks of opportunity would threaten it.

“Inquisitor’s orders,” the red-haired woman chirruped. “Junou sent word that we were to create something that gave you a link back to this world,” she pointed out, and he made a small sound of comprehension. “Here’s the match,” she lifted another plate that looked not unlike his own. “The only issue now is determining who would be best suited to carry it. The Inquisitor dives headlong into danger far too often, and sometimes in the Fade!” Cullen chuckled nervously. “What if we ask Her Holiness to take it? It doesn’t necessarily have to be present at a rift to function,” she suggested. “From now on, Cassandra will be well protected.”

“That’s acceptable to me. Or if not her, then Leliana, perhaps. Allow them to choose?” Dagna nodded eagerly, and gently laid the match into a locked wooden box. “Thank you, Dagna. Your assistance has been irreplaceable - do you tire of hearing such?”

“ _Never_ ,” she declared with a conspiratorial giggle.

He returned to his now empty office, and wrote out his formal resignation letter. It was a very emotional moment, and he stopped in the midst of the document, doubting himself truly for perhaps the first time in this whole affair. The Inquisition had given him so much, regardless of what all it had demanded, and he felt as though he were perhaps tossing it aside too cavalierly. He looked from the quill in his hand to the ring on his finger, trying to anticipate all the difficulties he may be setting himself up for.

“What if he doesn’t really want me?” he asked, forming the words aloud for maximum impact. “What if it were a - a nice diversion, but we’re too different to be compatible in the long term?” He couldn’t convince himself of that argument, though he did, and would, _worry_ over it. “What if he was moving on, and this was merely nostalgia?” He knew life had a way of moving on when one least anticipated it. “What if no one wants a - a _fraudulent_ version of the man they knew as Commander? Or what if - what if it just doesn’t work, and I end up somewhere without him?”

What if he ended up nowhere at all? What if this was his last, regrettable error?

The ring on his hand pulsed once, faintly. _I’m thinking of you_. His smile came slow but deep in response. He touched the inscription inside. _Sum tuus_.

He had no answer for any of it. If he lived, he would find a way through, even if it wasn’t as glorious and respected as his current position. The Maker gave him a mind to choose; Andraste sent symbols to guide. Cullen had decided a long time ago not to live ruled by fear - a work in progress, as living by honor and duty were both somewhat hollow at night under the stars. Living for love seemed a measure more appropriate.

Lining up his letters on the desktop, he marvelled on each clean white envelope, each hastily-penned recipient’s name. Josephine would see off the ones that needed to go. Every time his world had ended, it had been with a letter, or two.

By now it was quite dark; the Commander had missed dinner, and cringed imagining his lover’s admonishments, though even that brought a smile to his face. He climbed the loft, and laid down onto the bed. The day had been busy for his mind, despite what little had occurred, and he realized he’d been nursing a mild headache for the latter half. Would Dorian be in bed at this time?

“Do you want me?” He took off the ring and touched the inscription. Moments later, it pulsed back to him, and he smiled. “Should I come to you?” he touched it twice inside, and it pulsed twice back. He could imagine the silly smile on his lover’s full lips, as though it were seen from the pillow right next to him. “Do you miss me?” Once again touched, and returned. “Next time we should make it so these actually send messages,” he grumbled. The ring nudged him again, and he responded with another quick caress, smiling indulgently, and brought it to his lips.

_Maker_ , he admonished himself, feeling giddy. _Like Rosalie and her loves-me-nots_ , he thought, remembering the girl plucking petals off a flower to find out if the little boy she played with during Chantry Mass fancied her back, as a small child. “Don’t cry,” he whispered, and touched the ring one more time inside. Perhaps Dorian had fallen asleep; there was no response.

Several hours past midnight, he was startled from a doze by eager knocking on his door. Before he could do more than blearily roll toward the edge of his bed, he heard the door open and feet coming up the ladder. “Put some clothes on, you’re entertaining a guest!”

Snorting at the Tevene-accented announcement, he nearly rolled back to sleep, but the presence of a blooming magelight in the room startled him into blinking back awake. He was sitting up on the edge before he even registered what had happened. “‘S there a problem?” he asked, and Dorian came up short.

“Oh, no… I … simply didn’t recognize the lateness of the hour,” he admitted sheepishly. “Cullen, I have it,” he announced triumphantly. “I went by and consulted with Alexius and with Dagna as well - we’re in agreement. I could have asked additional opinions from Vivienne or Fiona, if you wished; however, I thought perhaps you would not invite additional speculation from those who couldn’t understand your motives.”

“Wait,” he rubbed one eye with the heel of his hand, blinking at the mage who knelt before him as one would a sleepy child. “It’s ready? You worked halfway through the night on it?”

“...Did I?” Dorian followed the finger Cullen pointed up through the hole in the roof, but he had not the survivalist’s skills for tracking the hour. He shook his head. “Anyway, you can go anytime you wish,” he announced triumphantly. “I know, I know; I’ve done it again. But, eh, perhaps in a good way this time.”

“You’re trouble _every_ time,” he grinned, and Dorian gave him a disdainful look. “Thank you, Dorian. It means… a lot to me.” He put a hand to his shoulder lightly, just a few fingertips resting there before he let go.

“One could hardly be angered by your quest for perfection,” he drew one hand over his moustache and then down his chin as though showcasing a work of art. “Of course I must help.”

“Arse,” he muttered fondly, and Dorian gaped at him in surprise before he answered the grin. “... Let me get dressed?” he decided.

“What, you’re all packed?” he asked, eyes widening as his brows rose.

“All packed, ready to go. All my letters written.” He paused and looked at Dorian. “If my siblings ever ask to talk to you about this…”

“A perfect gentleman, you have my word,” he raised one hand solemnly as Cullen nodded and rose. He went to change back into his standard uniform clothing and armor. Dorian turned toward the hole in the floor. “I’ll, eh… I’ll ask Bull to help me round up the usual suspects,” he supplied. “Come out to the upper courtyard when you’re ready, but do take your time. Other people like to sleep at night rather than run magical experiments,” Dorian shrugged, back to him. “No accounting for taste.”

As Cullen strapped Dagna’s plate to his belt, he patted it. Thoughtfully, he took the ring off and touched it several times in a row. Irritating, perhaps, but the only way he had to warn Dorian that something was up. The only way, perhaps, to say goodbye. Fully dressed and draped in his fur, he slipped a note onto the triptych with Leliana’s name on it, and looked around his loft one last time. He hadn’t really minded the ivy growing down the walls.

Hefting his bag and slinging the strap across his shoulder, he took his shield from the corner and hefted it into place on his back. The ladder creaked ominously as he slid down with the combined weight, and he touched the hilt of his sword to reassure himself. Looking around the office, he went through his mental checklist. So easy. Too easy, perhaps.

Sera was already in the upper courtyard, as was Cole. The Elven woman was still drinking, and had not been to bed. “Commander Cully-Wully!” She draped herself onto his arm languidly. “You’re gonna go into the scary rift?” she demanded. “That’s… that _piss_ ,” she decided.

“I’ll miss you bringing me cake,” he whispered. “Maybe eat some on my behalf?” He raised his eyes to Cole, who seemed to be downright content. “This was your idea all along, wasn’t it?” he asked.

Wide-eyed, the spirit tilted his head. “I don’t know,” he replied, surprisingly earnest. “But this… this is good,” he decided.

“Will my family be okay?” he asked.

“I think so,” Cole replied with some seriousness. “I can’t see the future, Cullen.”

Josephine and Adaar joined, and Sera transferred her grip to her beloved Tadwinks, kissing up on the _Vashoth_ woman’s clothed shoulder as she was swept up into Junou’s arm. “Can’t leave at daylight like decent folk,” the Inquisitor groused.

“Always was an early riser,” he said apologetically.

“Here,” she grumbled. “Make room for this.” She handed him a fine dagger in a dark leather sheath, and he smiled gratefully at her. Fumbling for a moment at his unoccupied hip, he strapped the sheath onto his belt. Josephine joined and he assured her that her gift was already packed into his bag, hugging her again as she requested.

Bull emerged with Rainier in tow. “Vivienne shut the door on me,” the _Tal-Vashoth_ explained. “Thinks you're being a fool and told me that if you had anything to say to her, you’d have said it earlier.” She had a point, he supposed. Maybe they’d already said goodbye.

“Maker,” Rainier shook his thickly-bearded chin at all of the goings-on. “Are you absolutely sure about this, Commander?” He stared up at the thing in trepidation, the golden-green light reflecting in his eyes. “No, never mind. I know better than to ask that,” he muttered, then thrust one hand out to shake his hand in a firm grip. “Andraste speed your way, Commander Cullen. It’s been an honor to serve with you.”

“ _Piss_ ,” Sera reiterated, nudging Junou’s arm. “Tadwinks, tell ‘im he can’t,” she whined.

Leliana and Cassandra arrived with Dorian. The Spymaster had nothing new to add that she hadn’t already spoken with him about, though he did murmur during their final embrace that he’d left something small for her in his loft if she cared to retrieve it. Cassandra didn’t seem to want to let him go, clinging with one hand in his, one arm around his neck for a long, long moment before she let him go, her eyes surprisingly bright. “So quickly,” she whispered, and he smiled.

Bull ignored his outstretched hand and grabbed him with both hands, pounding his back hard enough to rattle his armor. “Cullen, you’re gonna be fine wherever you end up,” he said, and his voice wasn’t quiet, regardless. “I can tell, you know,” he added with an exaggerated blink, and then he finally took the Commander’s arm, pumping his hand eagerly.

“You’ll look after Dorian,” he said reasonably. “He’d walk off a cliff if you dangled a codex in front of his nose.” The mage objected sharply and Bull guffawed at his outrage. “Your Chargers too. Krem and the rest are lucky to have you.”

When he’d gotten done being mauled by The Iron Bull, he went to the Inquisitor, and looked up at her, standing as tall as he could. She reached out and pressed a fingertip to the end of his nose. “Damn fool,” she muttered, and then threw her arms around his shoulders, letting Sera go for the moment. “Don’t you dare come crawling back here,” she declared, her voice wobbling only a little. “Certainly can’t expect us to miss you.” Sera hated to be left out, so she wormed up into the hug somehow, and he patted them both on the back.

“I’ll have it known Cassandra has exclusive rights to tell the story to Varric,” he stepped back from them. “None of you spoil it for her,” he pointed around the circle, and he got a few chuckles. “Cassandra,” he began, and bit his lower lip uncertainly.

“What is it, Cullen?” she asked, smiling.

“Well,” he answered diffidently. “Only, perhaps a prayer for safe landing from the Divine wouldn’t go amiss,” he asked tentatively. She crossed both hands over her chest and closed her eyes, looking up as she spoke a short Canticle from memory, and invoked the Maker and Andraste to guide her friend. Afterward, she took his shoulders, and placed a kiss of benediction on his brow. He smiled at her, feeling his eyes sting. She asked if he was satisfied with it, and his throat had locked too much to speak. He only nodded vigorously, tried to smile, and stepped back, looking around the circle at all of them, blinking until his vision stopped wavering.

“Come on, Dorian,” he said at last. “Let’s get these people back to bed.” Josephine hitched a sob, and Rainier put a comforting arm around her shoulders, letting her lean against him in the chill night air.

At some point, the Tevinter man had collected his staff, and he stepped forward out of the circle. “You didn’t even say goodbye to me, you lout.”

“What is there to say?” He asked, smirking. “My victory record in chess speaks for itself.” A few barks of laughter drew the mage to snort. “You know I appreciate this.”

“The goodbye isn’t for you, it’s for me, you arse,” he said, and reached out one hand, placing his palm on the edge of the wolf fur collar even as his face scrunched up. “If you show up wearing this, they might just throw you back like a disappointed fisherman.”

“Goodbye, Dorian,” he said softly. “Look out for yourself sometimes, hmm? Especially in Tevinter. Look out for Bull too, where you can.” He held the mage’s gaze for a moment, his eyes seeming golden-green under the rift. For a long moment, he wasn’t sure what the other man was thinking, his face seemed so reserved. At last it broke.

“Enough of that,” he declared. “You’re the one who couldn’t even wait til morning.” Pushing his shoulder, Dorian eased him away from the others and closer to the rift. “Take this, as well. Just in case.” A thick fold of parchment was presented to him, and he stowed the pages into his bag as ordered, though it was a bit of a struggle. 

“What is written here?”

“It’s everything I know about both the rift, and the spell to activate your transit through it. Where’s the amulet?” Cullen pulled it from his armor, and Dorian directed him to grasp it with the chain locked and wrapped around his fingers, so that it could dangle from his hand, but not be separated from his person inadvertently. “Alright. All you have to do is stand there,” he said as he turned to walk away a few steps, turning with his staff outstretched toward the birthright.

“Look pretty!” Leliana called, and Adaar and the three advisors all chuckled fondly.

The brightness of the rift being activated, the glow of the amulet in his hands - barely-controlled magic so close to him - and the building whine of the rift; he hoped never to see or hear these things again. More unnerving was the way the amulet slowly decreased in weight, almost floating up toward his hand. “Don’t let it touch you,” Dorian called. And then, after a while, “Lyrium!”

“Got you, _Kadan_ ,” and the soft glow of the phial pierced the dark as Dorian downed it.

Being directly under the light of the rift was unsettling, and Cullen forced himself to breathe as deeply as he could, tightening his limbs to keep where he should be standing. He made sure the amulet was swinging free of his hand, and then he closed his eyes, gritting his teeth and tilting his head up into the light of the rift to say a prayer of his own.

_“Lo! My eyes open'd, shining before me ...hand all outstretch'd, stars glist'ning as jewels, from rings 'pon His fingers…_ ” he took a shaky breath through the Canticle of Andraste.

The light flared brightly, and he barely felt the air in his lungs; his whole body felt light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the last FULL chapter of _Parhelion_. I promise the epilogue will answer our lingering questions, so please look forward to it.
> 
> I'm grateful to everyone for reading! By the nature of the multiverse continuum, every decision has multiple results, and my intention is to share some of those possibilities if I have the wherewithal to do so. Please consider this point the branch-off point for Carver Hawke's story. Everything before this point has been canon to that tale, and the epilogue is not. (Please give him a chance, y'all. I promise he's not 21 anymore.)
> 
> ~Super-Advance Sneak Preview~
> 
> _I can do this,_ he said to himself. Varric had spoken so proudly of how Cullen had kicked lyrium - and he’d been on it for ages. The Dwarf had actually been proud of Cullen. _Like a different man,_ he’d said. _You’d hardly recognize him, Junior. He knows how to smile and laugh, and he plays chess and Wicked Grace - and mages; don’t even get me started about mages!_ Damn, but he’d have loved to have seen that. Apparently, he’d learned how to fall in love as well.
> 
> How sodding pathetic was it that he wouldn’t have minded, just a little bit, if Varric was proud of him too? Then again, he wouldn’t recommend just anyone to the Inquisition as Cullen’s replacement. Right?


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I just… I didn’t want it. I didn’t want all that emptiness. Can you understand?” he asked. “I wanted…” What a fine time to flush like a child, but such was his lot in life._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys. _You. Guys._ It's been such a pleasure bringing this story to you, and I appreciate everyone's patience, comments, kudos, and love! It was fun bringing out so many updates as holiday posts as well! Thank you for putting up with my remedial ~~Latin~~ Tevene, which ate so many hours of my life.
> 
> Thanks again to Calcitron for editing this and trying to keep me from being a complete hot mess; thanks to everyone at Herald's Rest, and everyone who read. For anyone who wants to look back, my _Parhelion_ playlist is linked in ch. 10 and Dorian shows his face to the best of my ability in ch. 13.
> 
> _SEE YOU AGAIN, SPACE COWBOY._

When the light receded from his vision, he kept his eyes closed for a long moment until the glare died down. The inside of his eyelids faded from white to yellow, through red and down to near black. Taking a deep breath, Cullen dropped his chin and gripped his free hand into a fist. As he blinked through the glare of sunlight in his eyelashes, he felt the weight of the Pavus family birthright fall from the air, swinging haphazardly from his fingers.

Before he could even adjust to the light, he heard the shifting of armored men, the scrape of swords against shields, and the muttering of voices in astonishment. Raising his fist, he blocked the sunlight streaming over the battlements far to the west with his forearm. Wincing from the transition between two bells in the morning and seven bells at night, he looked around to see a group of armed men and women regarding him in astonishment.

“Get the Commander,” someone said, and one of the younger recruits was startled out of their white-faced stare. Sheathing his sword, the young man backed toward the steps to the Great Hall, before turning and racing up the steps. The rest of the guard surrounded him uneasily, and the Fereldan man swallowed, shuffling in place slightly to regain his balance.

“Don’t move, ser,” one of the more experienced women barked at him. “Beggin’ your pardon.” She had a familiar face, though he couldn’t put a name to it right off. “I know who you look like, ser, but you can’t possibly be here,” she went on, with a touch of reserved apology.

“...Because I’m dead?” he croaked out, swallowing his anxiety. She didn’t acknowledge it, but he saw the truth of it in her eyes. _That’s promising, right?_ he thought. “You’re right to be cautious. We’re not prone to trusting things that come from rifts.”

Receiving a guarded nod, he breathed out a sigh. Suddenly, he realized his hand was warm like he’d stuck it in bathwater. Heart in his throat, Cullen glanced down abruptly at the hand which had the birthright chain wrapped around it. “I’m going to put this amulet on, and then I’m going to surrender my arms, Lieutenant,” he promised. With deliberate motions, he did as promised, leaving his bag, his sword and dagger down upon the ground, then shrugging off his shield to boot. With both arms free and feeling lighter, he spread his hands, palms open.

“Thank you, ser,” she replied, and waved back one of her corporals to give him a better buffer of space. “We appreciate your cooperation. The Commander will be here soon, and he’ll see to ye,” she promised.

“Will you also do me the favor of summoning Dorian as well?” he asked. He received no acknowledgement, and figured she couldn’t promise. “I’m going to take just my glove off, and the ring I’m wearing.” Slowly, he did so, tracked by five pairs of eyes. When he had the ring in hand, he touched the inscription, three times quickly, with just a touch of urgency behind it, not that he expected it to translate. Replacing it, he slipped his glove back on as well.

From the top of the stair, a man and a woman burst out of the enormous doors to the main hall at top speed. He didn’t recognize either of them, but they paused and glanced at the scene before them, then hurried down the stairs at breakneck speed. Arm outthrust, the large armored man urged the woman to fall back, reaching for the sword at his back unconsciously before letting his hand fall.

Powerful frame, piercing blue eyes, and a soft-looking sweep of black hair framed a strong-jawed face sharpened by times of hunger and years of labor. It was a Fereldan visage, and inexplicably familiar for all that he was certain he’d never seen the man before. Venturing closer to him than anyone yet, the man fell short outside of arm's length, eyes roaming his face with a look somewhat of desperation. “Knight-Captain?” Then he blinked rapidly, as if to remind himself, “ _Commander_ … ser. Is it really you?”

Apparently he was recognizable at least. “I am Commander Cullen Rutherford.” He paused, but no introduction seemed forthcoming. “And you are?” he prompted gently, eyes intent on the man’s body language, which was surprisingly relaxed, given the circumstances. Enough so that he registered a flinch at his question.

“You don’t… know me, ser?” He waited a beat, and when Cullen’s careful regard did not relax, other than to lower his hands in a pose of forced relaxation, he cleared his throat, his brows knitting with something like a flash of disappointment. “Inquisition Commander Carver Hawke,” he offered.

The beat of silence extended, and he was unsure how he should break it. “Any relation to the Champion of Kirkwall?”

Something about it surprised him again. “Yes ser; the Champion was my sister.”

“Oh… wait, _sister_?” he asked, frowning. “Where I come from, the Champion was Garrett Hawke. His only sibling was … Bethany, if I’m not mistaken.”

Another small flinch. “So, it’s true then,” he muttered. After a moment he finally gave way to let the impatient-looking woman approach. She was tall and stately, human with brown hair tied up somewhat carelessly, and she looked him over with every inch of unwavering examination that Cassandra had ever affixed him with across a fancy desk in Kirkwall.

“He certainly looks like the real deal, wouldn’t you say, Carv?” she asked, her voice casual but not lacking authority, crossing her arms. She was wearing light armor, and on either lapel was fixed a golden-bronze badge, not unlike the sigil that Junou often wore. He felt a pang of missing his Inquisitor and friend. “Uncanny,” she added.

“Would you be… perhaps, Evie - beg pardon, Evelyn Trevelyan?” he asked cautiously.

She tilted her head. “You mean you don’t know?”

“No,” he replied diplomatically, after a hesitation. “No, I’m afraid we’ve never met.”

“I see. But you’ve met my mage?”

“I hope so,” he replied earnestly. “Honestly, this whole business…” he hitched his chin up slightly, indicative of the rift, “...it’s all terribly unnerving, and no one seems to know what they’re doing. I can’t even be sure I’ve reached the right destination,” he admitted. On the stairs, the movements of a dark-clothed and a golden-shrouded shape evoked the presence of the other advisors. “I seem to have interrupted a meeting,” he said apologetically as the two women climbed down the stairs.

“ _Cullen?_ ” Josephine Montilyet was a perfect match for her alternate, and it helped put him at ease for the first time since arrival. “Oh, Cullen!” She launched herself in his direction, gold chain winking in the light as she went to embrace him, but Commander Hawke took her arm gently to halt her. Leliana took her place behind the woman who was clearly the Inquisitor, looking him over, and his belongings, with care. Both her red-gold eyebrows shot up, just enough that someone familiar with her could notice.

“Perhaps, if you’re amenable to breaking this deadlock, maybe your Cole could vouch for me?” he suggested tentatively, looking around what he could see of Skyhold openly. In terms of its general construction and condition, it was unmistakably the same venue, but something about it made the place seem more grim, less lively. Perhaps it was simply his tangential knowledge of the tragedies that had occurred here. “Cole would certainly recognize someone who was not what they were pretending to be.” He nodded toward Leliana respectfully as well. “I’ll cooperate fully with Sister Nightingale as well. She is welcome to search my belongings.”

It was as though every word he spoke was putting them under some strange spell of denial. At last, Evie reached out one hand and gestured to the guards to sheathe their weapons. “So, you are Cullen Rutherford,” she established, and tilted her head. There was a hard edge to this woman that he couldn’t help but respect. “You’re not from here - obviously, because our friend died in service six months ago. One might assume that you are from the same world which recently lent us their stray _altus_?”

“Well, that did happen to us,” he agreed. “From what the…” he rubbed his forehead to assuage the growing headache. “What the educated mages were asserting, this could be one of any number of worlds, but… I do have this,” he reached up, and pulled the marred birthright pendant away from his gorget to show them. The Commander merely frowned at it, but Trevelyan recognized it. “Also, I have the…”

“You made it,” came a voice from behind him, to the right. It was Cole, but far more expressionless than he was accustomed to seeing these days. He seemed somehow more colorless, eyes looking through them all as much as at them. “I expected you would,” he replied indifferently. “It is good to see you again,” he added, sincerely, but with all the passion of a Tranquil. It was saddening, a bit.

“Yes,” he replied, as genially as he could manage. “Your other self - the other Cole, he helped us,” Cullen explained. “If you like, I will tell you about him later.”

“I would like that,” he replied quietly, and looked at Evelyn. “You have nothing to fear from him. He is only interested in Dorian.” He was gone before anyone could so much as blink.

“Thank you… Cole…” Cullen blinked after him at the spot where he had been. “Well. Some things stay the same.”

That, if anything earned him a laugh from Trevelyan. “So why are you here?”

“I… brought this,” he touched the birthright, but the eyes on him did not waver. “Anything else, I want to discuss with Dorian,” he added apologetically. “Permission for visitation here at Skyhold, for the foreseeable future?” he asked the Inquisitor respectfully.

Whatever passed between Hawke and Trevelyan in the silent look they exchanged, he could only guess at. The hand on Josephine’s upper arm dropped, however, though she remained where she was. “Permission granted,” the Herald replied at last. “Don’t be surprised by all the odd looks you’ll be getting, however.”

“Understood,” he replied, resisting the urge to smile. His eyes were still scanning the crowd, but there was no sign of a Tevinter mage among the group. Leliana’s eyes caught his own, and he thought she smirked slightly, though she didn’t bother to make a production out of it. Squeezing his hands into fists, Cullen gazed through the group of advisors, waiting for the tension to break.

“Well,” Evelyn began. “Let’s keep an escort with our new old friend for a day or so, Commander Hawke, for convenience and safety. I’m sure there will be time for a thousand and one questions in short order, hmm?” She had her thumbs hooked into her belt speculatively. “Leliana, will you take Cullen’s things?”

“Certainly,” she replied smoothly. “Would it be wise to invite our guest for a debrief?” She peered at him even as she motioned for a scout to take his belongings up to the rookery. “I, for one, am fascinated to hear whatever history and insights Cullen has to share.” It seemed there was a very soft pressure on his name, as though she were deliberately breaking a glass wall preventing others from addressing him directly. Their recent grief had formed a barrier against that hope, he realized, and could not fault them.

“Should… should I arrange a guest room?” Josephine wondered tentatively.

As ever, the Inquisition seemed to take the strangest events in stride, he mused, not quite laughing about it even as he did. He followed the lead of the women who turned toward the stairs, the Commander falling in step behind. As they approached the Great Hall, however, there was a sudden cry from inside, and a flurry of activity at the top.

Two figures burst out onto the landing, and Cullen looked up the stairs, and up the second flight, and his heart leapt, recognizing the bronze-painted brown skin in the sunlight; Dorian had changed into a garment he had not seen before, of course, and a deep green mantle was pinned around his upper arms. Staggering to a stop with his uneven stride, the mage clutched his custom staff and looked down, freezing in place when he caught sight of the ex-Templar within the group of advisors. Cullen stopped in place as well, seeing the breath catch in the former _altus’_ throat, arresting the panting from his dash to the door.

“Cullen,” he mouthed, though the Fereldan man could not hear it from where he was. The whole scene seemed as surreal to him as the reverse did to the Commander below; Cullen himself was doubtless a familiar face among faces he’d never thought to pair it with again. Stricken, he looked something between relieved and panicked. Thrusting his staff back, he seized the hem of his cloak in one hand, throwing himself down the stairs. The woman behind him grabbed the staff with a fumbling motion, one hand covering her mouth.

Right now, the only thing that mattered was the limping mage trying to fly down the stairs to him, and his heart skipped a beat. _Don’t run; I didn’t come all this way for you to break your fool neck_ \- he threw himself up the stairs, slowing as Dorian stopped on the landing, looking at him from halfway up.

He wasn’t wearing the coat; his tunic was gray samite and blue silk brocade, with fancy buckles on one side, and he was _so Dorian_. Maker, he looked perfect - his hair pulled half-back and falling softly against his neck; his moustache and sharply thin goatee, the scar on his chin - Cullen saw it all and smiled at him, fit to break his own face. It had to be him, it was too exact. Dorian let out a breath with his whole body, expression crumpling as he staggered down the rest of the steps between them.

Reaching up for him, Cullen caught him when he inevitably stumbled, hands catching him at his hips, sliding up his ribs as Dorian threw arms around his fur-clad shoulders. “ _Mea Bellator,_ ” he gasped, tears already evident in his voice. _“Mellitus_ , how can you _be_ here,” he was demanding. “Ohh, _Maker_ …”

Staggering under their combined weight, Cullen gathered him up fiercely. _Yes, right where you belong_. “ _Sum tuus_ ,” he tried, in his broken approximation of Tevene. Dorian gathered his feet beneath him and pulled back, looking down at him from the higher step, wetness caught in his dark lashes. “ _Sum tuus_ … if - if you’ll have me,” he said softly. The mage gaped at him, the bare, cool fingers of one hand rising to brush along his unshaven cheek.

Nodding fervently, a few drops of liquid sprang free down his lover’s cheeks. Cullen put his own hands up to brush them away, as Dorian tried his best to put his expression back to rights. Giving up, he fell forward to bury his face into fur. Cullen felt his leg shaking beneath him, and lowered him carefully to the steps, kneeling a step or two below but at his side. Dorian didn’t want to let him go, so he fumbled it, but they were down safe at last, with footsteps and whispers behind. Dorian shuddered, gasping in a harsh breath against his shoulder.

“You can’t have… you were meant to…” he tried, and he pulled away, eyes roving over his face with soft desperation. “Cullen, you had a _life_ there.” 

“It didn’t feel like much of a life, when you left,” he admitted, his own voice coming in rough in his throat. He caught Dorian’s hands in his, thumbs smoothing over his knuckles. “I just… I didn’t want it. I didn’t want all that emptiness. Can you understand?” he asked. “I wanted…” What a fine time to flush like a child, but such was his lot in life. “I wanted _you_ , you foolish man.” He brought the mage’s ringed fingers up, the way Dorian had done to him in the War Room that day in the other world, and placed secret kisses on his knuckles, with extra for the wedding band. “You should have told me,” he said, raising his head. “You should have brought me with you in the first place.”

“What about - “ Dorian’s voice rose in a strident-sounding demand, but was interrupted.

“... Cullen?” the woman who had been clutching the man’s staff had slowly advanced down the steps, standing just behind Dorian. “By Andraste, is it really…” her voice broke, hands covering her mouth, and she was crying, crying more than Dorian, sandy-blonde curls pinned back behind her ears fluttering in a sudden sharp wind.

“Mia,” he breathed. It had been so many years since he’d laid eyes on her - far too many. Yet she was clearly his sister. Her hair, those eyes - there was no mistaking her. He held a hand up to her, beckoning her down. “Oh Mia,” he sighed, letting her reach for his hand in her own time. “You’ve gone through a lot in the past few months, haven’t you?”

Afraid and overwhelmed by all of this, she nevertheless clearly wanted to grab him and hold him, like Dorian had already done, her face creased in anguish. She touched his hand, let his fingers curl around hers before she took them back. He gave her a warm smile, and let her have a moment to process everything. Turning back to Dorian, he cupped the Tevinter man’s face with both hands, and kissed him in that soft spot behind his ear gently, then pulled back.

Dorian followed when he pulled with both hands, standing on his feet unsteadily. “So that’s how it is, huh?” Evelyn Trevelyan raised an eyebrow at him when he looked back over his shoulder at her and blushed. “Left your mark on him already, have you?”

“I’m afraid he has,” Cullen answered on his behalf, glancing up at the mage, turning but keeping one arm around his hips. “We’re not the same people each of us knew. But, I think we like one another well enough,” he looked at Dorian, a touch trepidatiously. “...Right?”

“Just watch me ever let go of you again,” the mage swore in a husky voice, fingers gripping his shoulder on one side, and grip the hand on his opposite hip. “But darling, are you sure about all this? I know you quite well, and there’s no question in my mind how I feel. But this must have been so fast for you…”

“Even I recognize when something feels right,” he said. “Now. Would you care to finish what you started and close that troublesome rift? If you’re sure you don’t want to throw me back, that is,” he offered one last time, pulling the birthright back off and handing it to the mage.

Jerking him close with the hand around his shoulders, Dorian placed a brand-hot kiss to his temple. “You’ll never be quit of me now, you realize,” he whispered into the ex-Templar’s ear. He felt his heart jump even as his chest softened. The former _altus_ took the amulet and reclaimed his staff, then climbed the rest of the way down the stairs toward the rift. Mia took the opportunity to approach, and Cullen offered his arms to her for a hug she clearly needed.

Dorian glanced back at his new lover before he began, and even from the stairs, Cullen could see his expression soften. Evelyn directed one of the soldiers to jog toward the quartermaster and grab a lyrium potion for Dorian in case it was needed. With the entire assembly watching the mage intently, a long incantation to dispel the rift began, and when it ended, with an almost explosive white closure, it left them all blinking into the dull brightness of sunset. The patrols remaining around the upper courtyard cheered, and the curious and confused people spilling out of the Herald’s Rest also came out with beers still in hand to add to the joyous shouts. The rift was no more.

Mia, standing contentedly next to Cullen, one hand on his upper arm, chuckled under her breath in that way she used to have when Cullen and Branson got into trouble as children. “You see Lady Trevelyan’s smile?” she muttered, and he raised his eyebrow as he turned to look. “That man is dead meat,” she added pleasantly.

“I was afraid of that,” he muttered back, and she couldn’t contain an over-emotional giggle and sniffle, patting his arm as she gazed up at him. “You look so well, Mia. I know I’m not… not _your_ Cullen. But… as far as I’m concerned, you’re my sister, and -”

“Hush now,” she said, smiling brightly as tears overflowed. Trevelyan turned just in time to see her swiping them away, and she seemed to soften at the sight of the two of them. “You just see to Dorian for now. We have plenty of time to… to figure out how to explain this to your niece and nephews,” she sighed heavily, eyes widening for emphasis. “I’ll leave you to business, but… let’s talk once the kids are in bed.”

“I look forward to it.” Dorian was climbing the stairs, as Mia turned to depart, one last smile falling on him as she did. The mage looked wobbly from mana use, but as he started to pitch backward on the stairs, Commander Hawke caught him and pushed him upright again by the shoulders. Cullen took his hand as he made it to the landing. “You did well.”

“I hope you’ll wait for me,” he muttered, nodding with a smile pasted on as Evelyn and the rest of the advisors passed. “I’m sure - _we’ll be right there_ \- I’m quite certain that Evie is going to disown me,” he stage-whispered.

“It’s okay,” he whispered back. “You’ve still got me.”

“Have I?” He asked, his face lighting up in the approaching dusk. “Or will I wake up and find that this was all a tempting demonic vision in the Fade?”

“Well, I do want your body,” he allowed in his softest murmur when he was sure they were alone. “You should probably be careful about promising me anything.”

“I’ll take it under advisement.” Dorian’s fingers wound around his, one thumb rubbing the ring through his glove. Feeling the pressure of it, he removed his gloves and tucked them into his belt, letting Dorian see their hands together. “I can’t believe you came for me,” he said at last, on tenterhooks, biting his lip as though even saying the words aloud was too much, his voice a soft gasp. “I can’t believe…”

“I’m here,” he whispered, and stepped in, pulling his hands closer so that they fell together. Lips on lips, a caress; only a simple taste, a hint of smooth warmth and a moist parting that was still chaste enough for public, but he let the mage go with a reluctant exhale. “I can’t believe I made it either. Can we believe in miracles again?”

“I’m afraid we have no choice,” Dorian mouthed back, barely forming the words. “This won’t be easy, however,” he warned, fingers tightening in his. “It will take a lot of time before anything is easy, Cullen.”

“Being yours is the easiest thing I’ve ever tried,” he said, forehead bracing against his. “I suppose it’s only fair if _some_ of it is a bit of work.” Just then, he glanced to the west, and his eyes caught a faint flicker in the air. Taking in a breath, he turned toward the stairs, pulling Dorian along as urgently as he could given his injury, until they reached the top of the main landing.

Standing outside the door to the great hall, the two men gazed to the west at the setting sun, and Cullen pulled the mage tight to his side as he whispered into his ear with a smug grin, “ _Sundogs_.”

Snickering, Dorian slapped his armored chest with one hand. “How dare you,” he returned, fingers curling into the fur at his collar as he leaned his head on his shoulder. They watched the faint flicker of tiny dots of light framing the descent of the sun, low in the sky. They were fainter lights than the last time they’d seen the sight together, and they faded quickly as the angle of the sun changed, but it was more than enough. “It’s the Maker’s Blessing, isn’t that what my mother-in-law would have said?”

Holding him close in the light, Cullen hummed his agreement. His heart felt bright.

“Hey,” Dorian whispered, chin tilted up toward his ear. “Since I’ll be in the doghouse tomorrow anyway… would you be interested in seeing the new mabari pups?”

Turning, he kissed Dorian properly, one hand curling deep into his hair, the other smoothing down his back. When they parted, he pulled back and looked down at him, nodded, his throat too tight to say anything. One corner of his moustache lifted in amusement, his gray eyes alight. “No Fereldan can resist mabari; it’s an underhanded strategy you employ.”

“Since when has that ever stopped me before?” He shot back, but his eyes were steady and warm on his face, sadness and happiness combined in him. That was the gaze he’d crossed worlds for. “Come, before Evie tosses me over the battlements,” he urged, pulling his lover inside the Great Hall with both hands. Cullen happily followed in his wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again I cannot express my gratitude for everyone's patience. Now I can tag it as HEA!
> 
> I hope to share more about what happens to these two afterward, but before that, we have something of an alternate ending in the works for Carver, as I descend into rarepair hell.
> 
> ~~Sneak Preview: Dorian's POV this time~~
> 
> Dorian made a gesture toward the closest empty corner, his eyes seeing shapes that no longer lived there. “He used to keep his lyrium kit there, in the early days,” the mage went on. Carver was leaning against the wall where Cullen often used to stand, his arms and his legs crossed casually, bottle in one hand. “He wasn’t taking it, but he was at war. The desk was his battlefield, and he needed to keep his objective in sight. He said it made him into someone he didn’t recognize, and never wanted to be again.” He licked his lips. “It was our dining table - we ate dinner here, filled out wedding cards here…” _cried when letters arrived from Tevinter, and we wondered what sort of future we could even have._
> 
> “So what I’m hearing is, you fucked like rabbits on the desk I was doing reports at,” Carver grimaced a bit. “Maybe I’m _not_ sorry you broke it?”


End file.
